


Lost Souls - Vesperia

by Twilight_PhoenixFyre



Series: Lost Souls [1]
Category: Tales of Vesperia, The Host - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Invasion, And Soul!Sodia, Discussions about addiction in later chapters, Epilogue will be posted once Book 2 is finished due to spoilers, Eventual Soul!Flynn, Flynn may have ended up a tad OOC, Gen, Multi, No Characters pulled from The Host; only concepts, Parasites (sort of?), questionable moralities
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-27
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:13:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 31
Words: 45,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22927759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Twilight_PhoenixFyre/pseuds/Twilight_PhoenixFyre
Summary: There was an odd sort of dichotomy to the Souls. They were beautiful in their natural forms. Tiny things, glowing with the gentleness of a star plucked from the night sky, thin, feathery tendrils waving in the slightest breeze or puff of air. A single Soul couldn't take up half of his palm, but the little lights were breathtaking to behold.Except, they couldn't survive like that. No, in order to survive, they had to be Inserted into a Host. A carefully-placed Soul in one's neck, some medicine, and it was done. The person who woke would not be the human that had been; rather, the Soul now nestled just at the base of the skull. And like this, one Host at a time, city by city, the Souls had taken over Terca Lumereis.It had been a desperate gambit. They'd had the chance to run, but... he had chosen to stay. And the Soul who wore Ioder's face was willing to help them, to hide their mistakes and guide them into this new world.But hiding in plain sight was never Yuri's thing, and no matter how cruel the Souls might have seemed to enslave an entire world, they had their precious loved ones, as well. And for the Soul known as Scout, the safety of his beloved Sunny was paramount.
Relationships: Estellise Sidos Heurassein & Flynn Scifo, Flynn Scifo & Original Character(s), Flynn Scifo & Sodia, Implied Yuri Lowell/Flynn Scifo, [Scout] From the Origin/Sunlight Glinting off the Crystals (Sunny)
Series: Lost Souls [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1647829
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3
Collections: Tales Big Bang 2020





	1. Prologue - Letters

**Author's Note:**

> So, this has been a work-in-progress for something like five years now, and I am thrilled to be finally posting it.
> 
> There is an epilogue, and this is part of a series, but in the spirit of the Tales of Big Bang, the epilogue won't be posted to this story until I've got the next one ready to post. It reads just fine on its own. (Actually, every book of this series does that.)
> 
> Therefore... enjoy~

The man was silent as he rifled through the letters, blonde hair in desperate need of a haircut, and tied back for the time being as a sort of solution. So many letters tucked away in the box hidden under the bed. All but one of them in the same sloppy handwriting that, though clearly not perfect, was still legible. It spoke of the author not really caring how his handwriting looked.

A vast difference from the lone exception, which was penned in a much neater hand, though the sometimes too-blocky letters were an indication of perhaps trying a bit _too_ hard.

Only four sheets of paper remained on the bed as the man’s hands stilled, blue eyes drifting over each of the letters. He’d read them so many times over the years that he didn’t need to look to know the contents of each.

* * *

_Flynn,_

_Heard you had a rough week with a couple lords. I’m glad I’m not the one in Zaphias; I’d never be able to put up with the political bullshit anymore. Hope you’re handling it alright._

_Karol’s turned into a little slave driver, you know that? I think he knows it, too, but since none of us is complaining, he hasn’t let up. And it’s not like he isn’t pushing himself just as hard as he’s pushing the rest of us. I should probably try to talk him into the whole guild taking a break for a week or so, but then, I kinda like always having something to do._

_If nothing else, Brave Vesperia’s getting to be known pretty well._

_Rita’s been by a few times, usually looking for work when her research comes to a standstill and she’s having trouble getting it moving again. Come to think of it, I’m not sure if she’s actually an official member of the guild or not. But Karol’s usually more than happy to give her work, too, so I guess it all works out._

_I don’t suppose you’ve seen Estelle lately? She was due to be visiting last week, and Rita’s been here almost a month waiting on her to show up. I guess she got sidetracked somewhere. She can take care of herself, but all of us worry about her when she vanishes like this anyway._

_Hope you’re doing well,  
Yuri_

* * *

_Flynn,_

_You would not believe what Repede spent the entire day yesterday doing. And I’m being totally serious when I say this. (Not to mention confused.)_

_Growling._

_He spent almost five hours straight growling at a guy that walked into that little shop space I told you we bought as a guild headquarters. Admittedly, Andreas was a little annoying (he would NOT stop asking questions), but he gave us almost a dozen jobs and we’ll be getting damn good pay for them once we’ve completed them._

_You know Repede as well as I do. Yeah, he’s not the friendliest toward strangers, but he’s never been that hostile, either!_

_I’ll be honest, Flynn. I’m scared. He’s only five years old, ~~but that doesn’t mean~~ I’m not sure what’s going on._

_I guess I’m just going to have to wait and see if Andreas was a one-time deal. Could be a pretty good indicator that something’s up with that one guy in particular if it was, but if it wasn’t, I don’t want to think about it._

_Here’s hoping you’re having a better week than I am,  
Yuri_

_P.S. – Estelle finally showed up. Something about Undine and some of the minor water spirits hanging around the ford. I didn’t get to hear much before Rita started yelling, but at least she’s safe, right?_

* * *

_Flynn,_

_Get out of Zaphias. Head north. Judith and Ba’ul will find you._

_Yuri_

* * *

_Dear Yuri,_

_You’re probably never going to read this letter. I’m not sending it, it’s too risky, but I’ll leave it under the potted plant I keep near the window, just in case. If I know you, and if you’re still actually you, you’ll come looking for me because Judith and Ba’ul never found me. I can only hope you’ll decide to take the usual path up to my window. I know you’ll find it if you do._

_I’m sorry. I’ve probably let you down, but I couldn’t in good conscience just run away. Zaphias is my home. I’m not going to leave it all behind. Not even in these circumstances._

_Yes, I know what’s happening. Sodia caught on (thankfully before Ioder had a chance to put one of his plans in action) and Ioder’s been kind enough to cover the gaps left behind instead of turning us in as I suspected he would when I first realized he’d found out. The two of us, at least, will stay free._

_I guess the rest of you caught wind of what was happening and hightailed it out of Dahngrest before it fell. I know the guilds are gone. The empire isn’t far behind. I can’t bring myself to be bitter over it, though. It’s been a bare two months since I realized Ioder wasn’t the emperor I’d been tasked to protect anymore, and to be honest, I’ve been quite grateful for his support these last few weeks. He’s quickly becoming a good friend._

_I’m not one of them, Yuri. I know that’s probably what you’re thinking now. You’re thinking that the only possible way your goody-two-shoes friend (and much as I don’t like that label, I know you like applying it to me) could be saying something like this would be if he wasn’t actually your brother in all but blood anymore._

_It’s still me. I can’t say I’m happy with the way things are, the way things are going, but I owe it to any others like myself and Sodia who are still lingering in Zaphias to try to keep them safe._

_Ioder has his own reasons for keeping me alive. In his position, I’d probably do something similar._

_Yuri... If you’re still yourself, please. Stay that way. Don’t risk getting caught or killed for my sake. I’ll be alright here in Zaphias._

_Tell Repede I miss him._

_Sincerely,  
Flynn_

* * *

With a final heavy sigh, the man put the last of the letters away in the box and replaced it under the bed, standing up slowly.

Silver rings danced around the room as his eyes watched a passing bird outside the window, and a second set joined them a moment later.

“...Are you heading out soon?”

He glanced behind him, and then nodded. “Yeah. I’m on a patrol this afternoon.” He offered the woman an embrace for a moment, but he knew from the way she held herself that she knew exactly what he’d been doing.

“Go on. Have some fun scaring the kiddies, alright?”

He chuckled. “Yeah, sure.” Ten steps, and he paused just before leaving his quarters, glancing again at a pale blue dress. “Flynn, come back... please.”

_‘We both need you.’_


	2. Decision

Something wasn’t right. Hadn’t _been_ right, really, but Flynn had been hoping he was exaggerating the warning signs he was seeing.

The first big one had been the men he’d been training. One day, he’d had thirty-five very annoyed and exhausted soldiers glaring at him by the end of the drills.

When he’d looked over them after training a week later, he’d noticed that he was down to thirty-one men, and four of those standing before him had simply looked... baffled. Like they had no idea why they were there, even though they had come and participated anyway.

Then Hanks had... changed. There was no other word for it. It wasn’t even an extremely noticeable change.

It seemed as though something important about him had been watered down, like someone was trying to be Hanks, was doing a good job of it, even, but was still not _quite_ on-point.

The latest letter from Yuri was the straw that broke the camel’s back, though. Well, calling it a letter was generous.

It was a note. Barely a note, even. Three short sentences. Sentences that had been written in extremely shaky handwriting.

Flynn didn’t have to hear Yuri’s voice to know that his friend had been scared to death by something when he wrote that note.

He sat at his desk and stared at the scrap of paper, wondering if it was worth it to follow the vague directions scrawled across it in smudged ink.

_Get out of Zaphias. Head north. Judith and Ba’ul will find you._

Not exactly comforting. And far from helpful as answers went.

He needed to figure out what was going on. There was nothing else for it.

The soldiers, Hanks, now Yuri... It was all painting a grim picture and he _needed_ to know what was happening.

So he sighed, got to his feet, and stashed the little note in a desk drawer. First stop, Sodia. Mostly just to make sure she was aware that there was something going on.

The castle was quiet as he walked the halls. Sodia had a habit of wandering when she wasn’t on duty, so he was going to have to keep an eye out.

Many of the people he passed offered him smiles and friendly greetings. Others were silent, sending distrustful or envious glares his way.

It was proof of how _wrong_ the whole situation was that it was the former that sat him on edge and kept him on the balls of his feet.

“Commandant.”

And, of course, whenever he truly needed her, it seemed Sodia would find him faster than he would find her.

He knew, though, the moment that he turned to look her in the eye, that she had indeed noticed the growing unease. Oh, she looked calm enough, out of uniform but dressed reasonably in clothes meant for traveling. Her eyes gave her away, though, violet darting back and forth, left hand hovering over the messenger bag slung over her shoulder.

“Sir... I think you need to see this.”

That particular phrase was _never_ a good sign. And from the wariness in her stance, the way she was eyeing him...

She thought he was a threat. A potential hostile presence.

What in the world was going on...?

He simply nodded and made an ‘I’ll follow you’ gesture. Sodia knew the castle almost better than he did, and if she was this uneasy, letting her pick the location would maybe help settle her nerves. He needed to know what was going on, and she clearly had more of the puzzle pieces than he did.

It probably shouldn’t have surprised him that they ended up in a storage closet. Sodia was good at finding small, out-of-the-way places to settle in and wait. It was what she pulled out of her bag that surprised him.

Two cylindrical canisters, roughly a foot long and four inches wide each, and what looked like a sheet of glass, roughly the size of a book cover, with a thin silver-black coating on one side as if it was supposed to be a mirror.

The two canisters were silver-black at the ends, with odd buttons, and it seemed like one end was meant to come off, though Flynn wasn’t going to try to figure out how to open it. In the center of the canisters, shiny brightly through what seemed to be glass, were floating fuzzballs.

Or, well, that was what they looked like. One in each canister, the glow came primarily from their bodies, which were perhaps an inch long and not even a third as wide around. They were surrounded by what had to be hundreds, maybe even thousands of extremely fine fibers, suspended idly within as though gravity didn’t exist inside the glass and metal.

He glanced up at Sodia, who handed over the flat object, then pressed a button that had been half-hidden along one side.

The glass face lit up, and before Flynn could marvel over such a small, compact screen, she’d tapped on it a few times, opening something up.

That ‘something’ was, after only a moment’s examination, a journal or log of some kind, and given the date and time...

This had been written earlier in the day. Maybe an hour or two past, if that. He barely noted Sodia taking the canister he’d been examining as he skimmed through.

Then, with bile threatening to rise, he went back to the beginning of the entry and forced himself to slow down and _read_ the whole thing, because it painted an even grislier picture than he’d already braced himself for.

_The Infiltration is proceeding quietly, thank the Mists. Or, well. Mostly quietly, at least. Word from our agents in Dahngrest says that there may be trouble on the rise if we don’t move into the next phase soon. Though Silver’s done his best to keep in contact, he’s really not meant to be doing Infiltrations. Praise be to the Golden Mists that Scout’s transport finally made landfall six weeks ago._

_Silver sent word that he’d successfully found a suitable Host for my brother, and that the Insertion was performed almost a month ago, but Scout usually replies to my messages quickly. I haven’t heard a thing from him, and that has me worried. If the Host Silver chose had any suspicions about the Infiltration and is strong enough to resist him, or the Soulless natives around him have noticed his presence, he may not survive this Infiltration._

_I don’t want to have to be the one to bring that news to Sunny. She came in with the last transport, but I haven’t found an appropriate Host for her yet. I was considering Estellise, though she seems to have vanished in the last few months._

_Actually, now that I think about it, she was supposed to be visiting her friends in Dahngrest, wasn’t she? That’s where Silver is, where Scout’s supposed to be..._

_I’m afraid. If Scout’s Host knew, if he’s strong enough to keep my brother down, then things could get ugly very quickly. I’m not comfortable with this._

_I was hoping Minnow’s transport would be here by now. I’ve been keeping the other Souls off Flynn because I figured Minnow would do well with him for a Host, but at this rate, I’m going to have to settle with whomever I end up Inserting._

_Blessed Mists, which Healer thought I was a good match for this Host? I’m a Guide, not a Leader. Hell, my brother would handle this better than I do! Oh well. I don’t think it’ll be too much longer before the Infiltration bleeds into the Occupation. I can hold out a little longer._

_I don’t know how long I can avoid Inserting someone into Flynn, but I’m still holding out for Minnow. Maybe he’ll have a better idea of what to do with Sunny, if Scout really has been..._

_Curse these blasted meetings. I’ll have to put feelers out later, when I’m not being summoned to things I can barely keep up with._

Flynn swallowed harshly as he put the screen down, and looked up at Sodia.

Hosts. Insertions. Infiltration. Occupation.

Six weeks. Long enough that Yuri’s last letter suddenly made sense.

Repede could probably smell that something was off. Had his actions been enough of a warning, though? Was Yuri safe? The scrap of paper sitting in his desk hinted that he was, but the only way for him to know for sure...

No. He couldn’t risk it. Not right now, not when there was nothing going on that was very _obviously_ out of the usual aside from... well.

“Yuri knows,” he said finally.

“And what’s he doing about it?”

Flynn swallowed. “Hiding. I don’t think this was his call. That, or...” Or... Oh goddess. “Someone in Brave Vesperia’s got one of these damn parasites in their head, and they got caught.”

“He’s not willing to kill one of his friends if there’s a chance he could get them back,” Sodia mused. “So what are we going to do?”

That... that was harder to answer. Oh, he wanted to run. Wanted to do exactly as Yuri had told him to, wanted to flee Zaphias before he got caught, before they tried to put one of those _things_ into him. Yuri had said Ba’ul and Judith would be out looking for him. And he could take Sodia, too...

But what about everyone else? What about the rest of the people of Zaphias, the other people in the castle?

...He couldn’t just abandon them. Even if... even if half of them weren’t the people they used to be before this invasion.

He glanced at the twin canisters, each with a single floating ball of fluff within.

“...Do you think you could put us in their system?” he asked.

Sodia was silent for a moment before she nodded, reluctant but loyal as always. “I had a feeling you might want to stay. That’s why I brought the cryopacks. That’s what those were labeled as, by the way,” she said, reclaiming the portable screen and getting to work. “I can’t promise this will work though, Commandant.”

“I have to try. If you’d rather run, Judith and Ba’ul will be looking for me north of here. I’m sure they’d be willing to get you out,” Flynn insisted.

Violet eyes narrowed at him before returning to the screen in front of her. “I’ll stay by your side. Someone has to cover your dumb ass when you make decisions like this. And if you’re right, and Yuri’s dealing with one of his friends being turned into a Host, then he’s a little too busy to be babysitting _you_.”

Flynn chuckled. “I don’t need a babysitter, but thanks anyway,” he replied, picking up one of the... cryopacks.

There was a small section on one of the ends that looked like it was made of glass, and he tapped it out of curiosity.

A series of letters and numbers lit up, and he blinked once, twice... Then looked at Sodia. “Do you need a code for these things?” he asked.

She looked over her shoulder. “Yeah. Dunno how...” she started, before noticing the glowing string of characters on the cryopack. “Oh. Huh, that’s neat. Read it for me and then check the other?”

Flynn nodded. “A-G-A... Zero, nine, five, five, four, one.” A pause, and Sodia held her hand out for it.

“This’ll be mine. Yours?”

He picked up the second cryopack and tapped the little glass ‘bar’ at the end. “S-G-C, one, zero, eight, eight, two, two.”

“Alright. We’re in. No promises on whether or not it’ll hold, but at least we’re trying,” Sodia said. “I need to get this back to Ioder’s quarters. Whether or not he’s really our Emperor anymore, we don’t need him suspecting either of us of stealing it,” she added, holding up the screen. It was now dark again, and Flynn nodded.

They didn’t need to draw any more attention to themselves than necessary. Which meant he needed to get back to his rooms. Going for a walk in the middle of the day was normal. Disappearing for any length of time was not.

Oh goddess, he hoped Yuri would be okay...


	3. Golden

The days passed without anything seeming to have changed. Oh, things felt different, but that was just because now Flynn _knew_ what was going on.

The general day-to-day goings-on of the capital didn’t change, though. He still had to do an almost ridiculous amount of paperwork, he still kept up on drills—though, he let off a little on how hard he was pushing his soldiers, easily allowing his own dislike for fighting through to influence his actions, since one of the warning signs he’d seen had been the near-pacifism of some of his recruits.

He still made trips to the Lower Quarter, still spoke to Hanks, though without an ounce of the suspicion that he knew had been starting to creep into his voice the last few weeks. And he and Sodia kept each other up-to-date on _everything_ they were certain of.

It was... oddly easy, actually.

Which was why, roughly a week and a half after he and Sodia had put themselves in the system, he found himself sitting at his desk again and staring at the little note Yuri had sent him.

...He could probably still run, he mused. If he took off now, there was a chance Judith and Ba’ul would still be looking. He and Sodia had to be missing something.

It was _too_ easy.

Surely _someone_ had noticed something off about the two of them?

There was a knock at the door, and he jumped a bit in surprise, before double-checking the clock.

No, it was still rather late at night. So why...

“Flynn? Are you still awake?”

Flynn swallowed.

Ioder. Except... not.

A deep breath, and Flynn got to his feet. He’d been thinking about it the last few days, so he supposed... it was only to be expected that now he was going to find out what happened when he tried to do something he thought Yuri might attempt.

Yuri... He could only hope his friend was still free, really.

Tonight was likely going to be the deciding factor for him. If he woke up in the morning and was still himself, then he was probably going to succeed. If not... Well, he didn’t even know if he’d be waking up at all, if they put one of their kind in him.

He opened the door and offered up a tired smile for the emperor who really wasn’t anymore. “Yeah, I’m still up. Did you need something?”

Ioder glanced down the hall, then shifted. “May I come in?”

Flynn didn’t trust himself to speak, so he nodded and stepped out of the way. Moment of truth...

Ioder waited until the door clicked shut before he spoke.

“Was it your idea, or Sodia’s?”

Flynn didn’t move. Didn’t dare turn around at the moment.

They were caught.

“Mine,” he admitted. Hm, he was still right at the door. If he took off running now... But with ‘Ioder’ right behind him, would he even make it to Sodia before they were _both_ captured?

“Hm... I should have probably switched you two, but then... Agate tends to not care about Host gender, and Sunny...”

Flynn swallowed. ‘Agate.’ ‘Sunny.’

The way he’d said it, they’d sounded like names. Like... Like the parasites inside the cryopacks really were their own people, but then what happened to the people whose bodies they—

He stopped himself, took a deep breath, and turned around to look at Ioder. Or rather... “So... what am I supposed to call you?” he asked.

The blonde offered up a small smile, clearly not upset by the question. “My full name translates to Golden Mists in the Morning. Golden’s fine, though.” A pause, and a shrug. “And, so far as anyone outside of myself and Sodia is concerned... I guess that makes you Sunny.”

Flynn was shaking. Barely, but he could feel it. “...You’re not angry.” Probably a stupid observation to be blurting out, but...

Golden bowed his head, suddenly looking much as Ioder often did, as though he bore the weight of the world on his shoulders. “No. I...” He stopped and took a deep breath, blue eyes searching Flynn’s own. “Souls aren’t born the same way humans are, but sometimes... we still connect to others born from the same Mother or Father, and still call them siblings. My brother and I are one such pair, and the triplets are a rather interesting case of three ‘siblings’ with sequential designations.”

Flynn frowned. “And you’re telling me this because...”

A shrug. “Silver’s going to have to be told eventually. Sunny’s his sister. Minnow’s the third triplet, but he’s not here yet. And... Sunny and my brother are Partners. The closest thing Souls have to husband and wife. They’ve _been_ Partners for ages. And with Scout missing...” Again, Golden stopped, and Flynn suddenly thought he understood.

“You’re afraid Scout’s dead.”

Once again, blue met blue, and Golden nodded. “I don’t want Sunny to have to suffer through that particular loss. She’s... She’s not _delicate_ , but she and Scout have been together so long, his loss would shatter her. So... If you’re willing to remain among the Souls, and safeguard my sister-in-law... Then I’m willing to cover your tracks. I’ve already cleaned up the slight mess you two made putting yourselves in the system. No one should notice. I can tell you both everything you’ll need to know about your Souls to throw off any suspicions, and help you settle a little easier once the Occupation starts. That is... if you’re willing to let me help.”

...He didn’t know what to say. Or what to think, really.

So he shifted, and let himself drop to the floor, sitting with his back pressed against the door.

Ioder... _Golden_ was offering to help him and Sodia stay free.

“...Why not just take her and hide her or something? Why... why let me...?”

Golden shrugged. “If Scout really is dead, then... I have no reason to keep following him around out here. This will be my last life. I’ll take Sunny and set us on a transport back to the Origin, to the Silver Mists, and that’ll be the end of it. Silver and Minnow will probably go back to Shining Blue. Mists knows _they’re_ following Sunny and Scout around, too.”

It hit him rather suddenly, what Golden was trying to convey.

Because when it came right down to it... he understood where the Soul was coming from.

His brother was the driving force behind all of them continuing to... well. _Continue_. It was Scout who kept them all going, and it sounded like he didn’t even fully realize it. Because, well...

Scout sounded a lot like Yuri. The kind to keep going after what he believed in, no matter what happened or who tried to stop him. And that meant he had friends and _family_ willing to follow him to the ends of the earth, and then some.

Oh, Karol might have been the official leader of Brave Vesperia, but it was Yuri who gave the kid the strength to lead, Yuri who kept the whole guild together. If Yuri died...

Flynn would lose a part of himself.

He swallowed, and nodded. “I understand,” he said finally, pushing himself back to his feet slowly.

Golden wasn’t certain yet, but once he was... well. He’d said ‘this will be my last life.’ So, assuming that meant his host’s lifespan... “So... What’s Sunny’s full name?” Since Golden had already mentioned his full name, that meant...

The warm smile on Ioder’s face was a rather familiar expression, faint hope in blue eyes making Flynn feel just a little better about this whole mess.

“Sunlight Glinting off the Crystals.”


	4. Seeker

He was surprised at how quiet the takeover was. It seemed as if, one day, he’d been Commandant Flynn Scifo, and the next, he’d had to slip into the mantle of Sunlight Glinting off the Crystals, a Soul whose Partner had been lost in the Infiltration.

And when given the chance to change his name, he’d declined, choosing to ‘keep his Host’s name’ instead.

He wasn’t sure whether to be ecstatic that it was working so far, or just terrified. It had been two weeks since the official Occupation had begun. Two weeks since the old government was torn down and the Souls’ government took over the entire world.

He was technically out of a job at the moment, unless...

Unless.

He sat at his desk, arms crossed and head laying on them as he fought down the slowly-growing panic.

On the one hand, he could move out of his quarters and find himself some kind of a job, likely helping to rebuild the Lower Quarter, since that seemed to be one of the first things on the city’s to-do list. He wouldn’t be expected to fight, or do anything _against_ the Soulless that were still running around.

On the other hand... He could become a Seeker. He had quite a few of them familiar with him already, since they’d been among his troops for a time now. His familiarity with the city and all of its problem areas—or rather, his Host’s familiarity, since he really needed to _not_ screw something like that up when around the... other Souls—meant that he could probably stay pretty high up on the Seeker chain of command, which also meant he wouldn’t have to leave his rooms.

If Yuri ever came looking for him, likely wondering why he’d never gone to meet Judith and Ba’ul, being right where he’d been prior to the Occupation meant that Yuri would be less likely to get caught trying to find him.

Except... becoming a Seeker came with its risks. Golden wouldn’t be able to help him learn the tricks of the trade much, and there was only so much he could get away with _not_ knowing before someone got suspicious. He would also be forced to... well.

Part of what the Seekers did was round up the remaining Soulless, not to mention protect their fellow Souls from angry Soulless who didn’t understand what was going on. Not that Flynn could blame them for being angry, but...

He swallowed harshly and clenched his fists.

If he became a Seeker, he might be able to help keep some of the Soulless hidden among the populace in Zaphias.

He’d probably also have to help enslave anyone who came into the city unprepared.

Was it worth it? Would it be worth facing Yuri’s wrath if his brother in all but blood ever found out?

...Was it worth giving up a chance to maybe save Yuri, if he could get to his friend before the Healers and the other Seekers did?

There was a knock at the door, and Flynn took a deep breath, letting it all out slowly and imagining all of the tenseness going with it.

Well. It worked well enough that he supposed he was safe to answer the door.

So he got to his feet and crossed the floor, opening the door much like he had when Golden had visited almost two months ago to let him know he had an ally.

Speaking of Golden.

Seeing the man he’d once known as Emperor Ioder in very different clothing was a surprise, but he had a feeling it shouldn’t have been. Golden had complained often about having to play the role of nobility, so the far simpler clothing was actually rather telling.

Though... the green scarf confused him. Especially since it was rather warm, and Golden was otherwise dressed appropriately for the summer season.

The blonde had a knowing smile on his face, and he nodded over Flynn’s shoulder. “Do you mind if I come in? Now that I no longer have to fulfill the obligations of a Leader, I can take up my usual Calling as a Guide. I figured you could use my assistance.”

Flynn chuckled and stepped to the side, waiting until he’d closed the door to speak up. “I’m going to guess that when you say ‘guide,’ you’re not talking about showing people around places.”

Golden laughed, the first free and truly amused laugh Flynn had heard from the Soul since they’d made their alliance. “No, I’m not. But I’m mildly impressed that you figured that out already. Most _Souls_ don’t know better at first.” He sat himself down on the couch, clearly unbothered by the fact that Flynn was headed for the desk where Yuri’s note was currently laying face-down. While he had no problem leaving it laying around for a few moments, leaving it in the open for long was a bad idea.

“So, what do you actually do?” he asked, figuring that if he wanted this conversation to go anywhere, he’d better get it moving. Golden could sit around all day waiting for him to speak up, and in fact had done so for over an hour once simply because Flynn hadn’t _realized_ the Soul had been waiting for him to say something.

“The Guides help Souls choose their Callings. Usually the younger Souls who’ve tried a few things and given up trying to figure it out on their own, but it’s not uncommon for a Soul to start to lose sight of why they chose their normal Calling. Taking a step back can help sometimes,” Golden replied. “Not that I or my brother have ever needed help figuring out what _we_ want. Scout has an unhealthy fascination with rocks, I enjoy helping people, and we’re both so damn old we get sent in on every Infiltration mission the Souls in charge can call us in for.”

Flynn chuckled along, able to understand where Golden was going with that comment. “So you two get to do just about everything whether you want to or not. Must be nice getting to get back to your usual kinds of work.”

Golden nodded. “It really is. Anyway, most Callings have some sort of badge of office, usually decided on during the years prior to the Occupation.”

“Your scarf,” he realized.

“Yep! Well, and the stupid shield that I can’t seem to keep visible...” The Soul trailed off and flipped one end of the scarf around, revealing the emblem in question. Flynn quickly put it to memory. He doubted it would be all that necessary, but knowing meant he didn’t get weird looks for _not_ knowing.

Looks were bad, after all, as they meant he could very well get caught in his not-so-little act.

“So... what’s Sunny, usually?”

Golden grimaced. “And that is exactly why I’m here right now. Sunny usually flip-flops back and forth between dancing and acting. And I figure, you’ve got enough of the latter to do already that you’d probably rather not go that route,” he said. And yeah, if those were Sunny’s usual Callings, then Golden showing up was really _not_ surprising. That said...

“I was... somewhat considering joining the Seekers,” he admitted, daring to glance at Golden, and wondering what he thought of it.

The Soul’s smile was surprising. “Which is actually _exactly_ what I was going to suggest. Considering that this is supposed to be Sunny’s last life due to her Partner having died, choosing to channel her Host would be perfectly normal, and as a Seeker, you’d be doing basically the same things you were before.” There was a pause here, and Golden tilted his head to the side. “It’s the Soulless you’re worried about, though, isn’t it?”

He sighed and nodded. No reason to deny it, not when Golden was giving him _that_ look. “I’m just... I’m not sure if I could do that. You realize...”

“From your end of things, we’re not much more than parasites. I know. That’s... why they like to bring in the older Souls that are still active for Infiltrations. We’ve been through this so much that we’ve learned to ignore it. That doesn’t make it any easier, though. No matter what some of the other Souls might say.”

There was a moment, with Flynn leaning on the back of the sofa, and Golden sitting there looking up at him, when he wondered for a moment if Ioder was still alive inside his own head. Except, if that were the case...

“If Ioder were still alive, you’d tell me... right?”

Golden nodded, a sad smile on his face. “I would, if he were. I was one of the first hundred Souls Inserted in the early stages of the Infiltration. To be able to fight off a Soul and keep your own mind, if not your body, you need to have at least some kind of forewarning. It gets very dangerous to be Inserted into an adult Host in the later parts of the Infiltration, or after the Occupation has begun. That’s... why I’m pretty sure Scout’s dead.”

Flynn sighed. “Because he was Inserted near the end of the Infiltration. You think his Host managed to fight back.” Or...

Something occurred to Flynn rather suddenly, and it felt like someone had dumped a bucket of ice down his back.

Golden’s journal entry had said Silver was in Dahngrest. The guilds were all _based_ in Dahngrest, and Yuri’s note...

“Flynn? Are you alright? You look ill.”

He swallowed. “I think...” He stopped, shook his head, and forced himself to take a deep breath. It was a coincidence. It was a coincidence. It _had_ to be. But if it wasn’t... “I don’t think Scout’s dead _yet_ ,” he finally settled for saying.

“Hm? What makes you think that?” Golden didn’t sound upset that he’d suggested the Soul was wrong. Only curious.

“When Sodia put us into the system, she had one of your journal entries pulled up. Scout was Inserted in Dahngrest... not too long before I got a note from Yuri. Brave Vesperia’s gone to ground. _Something_ had to have spooked them, and the last letter I got from him before that...” A deep breath, and he really wasn’t surprised when Golden put a hand on his arm, silently supporting him. “Silver’s Host... was his name Andreas?”

A moment’s pause, and then it was Golden’s turn to take a deep breath. “Yes.”

Repede had caught on. He’d noticed that Andreas was a Soul, he’d been trying to warn Yuri...

Could it have been _Yuri_ who’d... no. Golden had said warning would allow someone to keep their mind, not their body. He didn’t know the details behind how the Souls were Inserted, where, why... nothing. But he _did_ know that for him to say something like that... Well. Yuri couldn’t have written that last note if it had been _him_ who’d become Scout’s Host. But Karol? The leader of the guild?

He could pull them all aside one by one and the others wouldn’t think a single thing of it.

If that had been the plot, as he’d learned often _was_...

“If I know them... they’re not going to give up until they can get his Host back,” he said finally.

“I hope you’re right, Flynn. But... I can’t say that I’ll be surprised if Scout _is_ already dead. Too many Infiltrations where _someone_ got caught somewhere they least wanted to be,” Golden replied, voice quiet and shaky. They stayed there for a little while, silent as they both recovered from the shock of realizing they both had precious people in the same line of fire.

And then, with an odd sort of suddenness, Golden got to his feet. “Should I tell Enrietta that you’ll be joining the Seekers?”

Flynn glanced at him in surprise, then nodded. It was likely his greatest chance at seeing Yuri again. And anyway... He’d decided to take up this act so he could help protect the people of Zaphias. That was the role the Seekers played...

And he couldn’t imagine any of the Soulless who had fled the cities being willing to accept those who were perfectly happy to do their best to blend in and hide among the Souls.

Though... “How much am I going to need to know _before_ I get into it that we haven’t already covered?” he asked.

Golden stopped and frowned a bit. And it wasn’t the usual ‘I’m thinking, but not hard’ frown. No, this was the ‘Do I really want to risk doing/saying this?’ frown.

“...Insertions and Extractions,” he said finally. “Seekers have to be able to do them in the field in the event of someone getting seriously injured or coming across a Soulless who can’t be sedated for extended periods of time.”

...Oh.

The former, he would be hesitant to learn. The latter, Golden would be hesitant to teach him, and for _good reason_.

Flynn sat down on the couch’s armrest, torn between horrified shock and elation. On the one hand... the _last_ thing he wanted to do was put Souls into innocent people. Being able to remove them...

But, at the same time...

Golden had pointed out the reasons why he’d need to know, and it _made sense_.

By the time he was forced to perform a field Insertion instead of simply taking someone back to the Healers—who would do the Insertion anyway— _someone_ will have died. No, he didn’t like it, but if it was a choice between the Soulless killing someone else when they woke up or Inserting a Soul before that could happen, knowing full well that they’d become a Host as soon as they were in the city...

He’d choose a field Insertion before running the risk that someone whose fate was sealed anyway could kill people who were just doing their jobs.

And as far as Extractions went... Well. If he was staying in Zaphias, he really didn’t have any need for that particular skill. Extracting Souls from as many people as possible might have sounded like a good idea on the surface, but some of those people would no doubt panic, and they’d draw attention, and then...

Then he and Sodia would get caught, and it will have all been for nothing.

He looked up at Golden, mind made up and hoping that he wouldn’t come to regret it. “When do we start?”


	5. Soul

Everything Golden taught him—with the pointed exceptions of how to perform Insertions and Extractions—he in turn taught to Sodia, every chance the two of them had to talk without being suspicious. It helped that Sunny and Agate (Sodia’s Soul, whose name she was slowly learning to answer to instead of her own name) had been friends for some time already, so they had an excuse to continue associating.

It didn’t do much to abate Sodia’s mounting anxiety every time he taught her things that she _knew_ he couldn’t have learned without some serious inside help, but the fact that they could prove to each other that they were still free was enough. All it took was shining a light directly at the other’s eyes to prove that there wasn’t actually a Soul hiding behind blue or violet eyes.

He threw himself into his work and his studies, grateful to find that Golden was right, and his routines really _hadn’t_ changed all that much in becoming a Seeker. He tried not to think about things outside of Zaphias. Tried not to worry over Yuri, over Brave Vesperia as a whole, over the Soulless groups they knew were still hiding out there.

It wasn’t until one of his fellow Seekers, a dark-haired man who looked vaguely like Yuri when Flynn dared to think about it, invited him to a celebration that he realized just how much time had passed since the Occupation had begun.

It startled him, badly, and after begging out of attending by citing a visit to Agate—which, to be fair, they _had_ planned on having dinner that night anyway, but he also could have simply invited Sodia to join him—Flynn had locked himself away in his rooms and allowed himself to have a short breakdown.

Seven months since the Occupation had begun.

Almost a year since he’d found out about the Souls.

Blue eyes drifted across the room, catching for a moment on the corner of an envelope just sticking out from under a potted plant.

He hadn’t heard from Yuri since that note. A part of him hoped that was a good sign, that Yuri was free and staying hidden somewhere, whether it be in plain sight as Flynn, Sodia, and a dozen others Flynn could name off the top of his head were doing in Zaphias, or... less openly.

He knew there were Soulless ‘resistance’ groups scattered around the world. Small cells of people who’d escaped, who’d built up camps or colonies and were content to live as far removed from the Souls as they could... except for when they needed supplies they couldn’t make for themselves. Food, on occasion, which was becoming more and more frequent as the winter dragged on, or medical supplies, for the most part.

He’d had to fight some of those people. Sure, if he could get away with letting them go, he did. But he usually couldn’t, and... that didn’t bother him anymore.

It should have.

It should have bothered him a lot.

There was a knock at the door, and for once, he chose to ignore it.

He’d done this for a _reason_ , and yet... who was he protecting more? The Souls, or the Soulless? He knew the answer, and it wasn’t the one it should have been.

What was wrong with him?

Another knock. This time, a voice calling out as well. “Flynn? Esper said you were in.”

He swallowed and stayed put.

Golden.

As if he needed more proof of how very _wrong_ everything was right now.

“Flynn?”

Again, he didn’t answer, silently wishing the Soul inhabiting Ioder’s body would just go away.

“Please don’t make me try to climb in through the window like Yuri did. You know I’ll do it.”

...

The worst, part, he mused as he got to his feet, was that Golden _would_ do it if he was that worried. And, well...

Flynn unlocked the door and opened it just a crack before returning to the corner he’d been curled up in.

Golden let himself in and, without a word, closed and re-locked the door. The worried expression he wore said volumes about the way Flynn was acting, but he couldn’t really bring himself to care at the moment as he dropped his head onto his knees and closed his eyes.

He heard Golden sigh, and listened to the Guide’s footsteps as he moved around the rooms. A clink here and there, a scent of pomegranate.

Calm.

Flynn wasn’t too sure he _wanted_ to drink the medicine-laced tea the Soul was preparing. But... he could understand _why_ Golden was doing it. He’d managed to avoid a breakdown for _months_ , so to suddenly be having one now...

He heard Golden set a tray down, but didn’t react, even as the scent of pomegranate became just a tad stronger.

“For the record... there’s a _reason_ why we try to keep the younger Souls away from Infiltrations and Seeker Callings.”

“I’m not a Soul,” Flynn pointed out.

“No. But the Soulless aren’t just problems to you. They’re _people_. A lot of Souls become numb to that fact as time wears on. I forget, sometimes, that you _aren’t_ a Soul, because you _act_ like one. A lot. And that’s not just because you’re trying to stay hidden, Flynn.”

He dared to glance up, watching as Golden stopped to take a sip from one of the teacups.

He forgot, too, sometimes, that Ioder was younger than him. It was times like these, when Golden allowed his calm façade to slip and let all of the years he’d lived as a Soul through that Flynn remembered, because that one expression of sorrow aged Ioder’s face by _decades_.

“You’ve done a very good job as a Seeker. Better than most Souls answering their first Seeker Calling.” Another sip, and Flynn noticed Golden biting his lip. “Good enough to attract the sort of attention that would get you sent on Infiltrations a _lot_ , actually. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Especially for you.”

Blue-green eyes rose from the teacup in his hands, and Golden offered up a weak smile. “It’s not too late to change your mind, you know.”

Flynn swallowed, and let his head drop again.

The problem with that statement, though, was... well.

“I think I finally figured out why Souls refer to doing their jobs as ‘answering their Callings,’” he said, voice quiet. “And... Seeking _is_ my Calling.”

Golden was quiet for a while, simply sitting across from him and occasionally taking a sip of tea. Flynn mulled over the conversation so far in his head, wondering when he’d become so comfortable in the presence of a _parasite_.

The automatic answer that his brain had come up with—when he’d turned into one, himself—was... wrong. And yet, at the same time, it was _right_ , too.

He wasn’t a Soul, technically speaking. He wasn’t a small, insect-like creature that rested at the top of the spine of the Host called Flynn Scifo. His eyes wouldn’t reflect back the silver rings of an actual Host, so he had to be careful to make sure no one shone a light directly at his face.

But his act, to keep the rest of the Seekers from suspecting him, to keep himself and Sodia _safe_... It was less act and more reality.

He’d spent the last year acting like a Soul, _thinking_ like a Soul... And that part of him that had insisted he’d turned into one was... right. Parasite, no. Soul? Yes.

His eyes rose again, not to meet Golden’s this time, but to the letter he’d written and left for Yuri to find if his friend ever came looking.

He could probably still run, he mused. He’d have to take Sodia with him, and neither of them could ever be caught, or Golden would be sent back to the Origin and isolated in the Blood Mists to die.

But they could probably make it.

The question was, did he _want_ to run? Did he _want_ to find a group of Soulless to live among?

The answer, thankfully a bit less stomach-churning than it had been earlier, was no.

Flynn Scifo was a Soul.

It took him a few times repeating it to himself before he could bear to look at Golden again.

The Guide tilted his head to the side, considering him. “Feeling better?”

The smile was natural, a quiet, grateful response that needed no words, and though Golden’s smile was brighter, it was still a warm response that settled something inside of him.

Yuri was going to kill him when—not if, _when_ —he figured it out. But until then...

“Are you going to stay for dinner?” he asked.

Golden paused and glanced at a clock. “Hm... I think I’ll have to get a raincheck on that. I’m supposed to be meeting Sings a Silly Song tonight. He’s having... _issues_.” There was another pause, and then Golden glanced at him. “How would you feel working with Adecor again? Well, not technically _Adecor_ I suppose...”

Flynn chuckled. “Is that the name of the Soul? Sings a Silly Song?”

Golden snickered. “He’s from Hyperion. Imp Host, formerly. Couldn’t hold a serious tune in a bucket as an Imp, and can’t hold a tune in a bucket _period_ here. And in the absence of better ideas, I’m about to tell him to take up the closest equivalent to his Host’s Calling.”

“Which would make him a Seeker... Sure. Can’t be worse than some of the kids I was training before the Occupation,” he agreed. And even knowing that it wasn’t Adecor behind brown eyes anymore, it would be nice to see another familiar face.

The Soul seated across from him stood, looking at the tray next to them, and Flynn waved him off. “I’ve got it.”

“If you insist. I’m glad I was able to help, even if it was just me sitting here.”

Flynn shook his head in amusement as the Guide headed for the door. “You helped a lot more than that, Golden.”

Golden stopped with the door half-open, and turned back to give him a sunny smile. “Well. That’s what friends are for.”

If that wasn’t the truth, he didn’t know what was.

He waited until Golden was gone before he looked down at the tray. Two teacups, one empty, the other full.

Curiosity winning out, he lifted the full cup and sniffed it, then tentatively took a sip.

Not a drop of the pomegranate-flavored Calm. Huh.

It was cold, though. And a tad under-steeped.

Oh well.

He dumped the tea into the flowerpot that was half-sitting on the letter to Yuri, and paused again as he considered it.

Keep it there, or remove it?

...

Flynn left it where it was and placed the teacups in the sink of the little kitchenette he... honestly never used.

Cooking was _not_ his strong suit. Best to leave that to Souls with more suitable Callings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit to [Startracings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/startracings/pseuds/startracings) for the image! :D


	6. Sodia

“I can’t believe it’s been two years.”

Flynn glanced up from the datapad in his hands, blinked twice at Sodia as he fought to reconcile the words she’d spoken with their meaning, and then nearly _dropped_ his datapad as they really sank in.

Two years.

Not from when they’d found out about the Souls, a full five months prior to the Occupation. No, it had been two years since the Occupation had begun.

“...It feels like it’s just flown by,” he murmured, eyes returned to the screen in front of him, but not seeing it.

Two years. Nearly two and a half since Yuri had sent that note.

Yuri...

In a rare moment of impulsiveness, he saved the report he was going over and logged into the Souls’ database, entering in a specific set of search criteria. It still brought up _hundreds_ of results, but at least it was better than trying to search through the millions of Hosts on Terca Lumereis.

One of the Soul names had him pause, though, and he tapped on ‘Scout From the Origin,’ curiosity winning out over the sudden, desperate need to know if Yuri was still free.

The Host information listed was... identical to what Yuri’s would be, Flynn mused.

But there was no name given. Age was an estimate only, not a certainty.

The note in the comments section, though, made Flynn stop as his heart sank.

_‘Founding member of Dahngrest Guild Registration #3045 (Brave Vesperia). Scouted for Elder Insertion Specialist SFO-010144 by SMR-108821. Swordsman. Disappeared immediately after Insertion.’_

Status was listed as ‘MIA – Probable capture & kill by Soulless.’

Flynn’s mind jumped back to the conversation he’d had with Golden about Scout still being alive, about being Inserted into a member of Brave Vesperia.

This... this implied that he’d been Inserted into _Yuri_.

But Yuri had written that note. Yuri had sent him that warning.

“...Flynn?”

He looked up, and handed over the datapad without a word.

Sodia was silent for a moment as she read, face slowly paling as she, too, connected the dots.

There was a pause, and then a deep breath. “Do you think... they’re still alive? He sent you that warning... And with the others disappeared as well...”

Flynn reclaimed the tablet and, with a sudden need to _know_ , started searching for the other members of Brave Vesperia.

Estelle’s pink hair only brought up two Hosts, both male and therefore _not_ her.

Rita and Karol were harder. Their physical descriptions were so common, so plain, that it took him an hour to get through all of them. But in the end, he was fairly comfortable saying ‘nope’ to them as well.

Raven was, again, easy. The blastia keeping him alive would have been flagged.

Again, no results.

Judith was another story altogether. There were enough Krityans in the system to make finding her, specifically, a bit of a task, but there were enough little differences for him to narrow the list down to eight before he started looking through descriptions.

Nope, nope, nope...

On the second-to-last one, Flynn stopped, heart sinking even further in his chest.

Judith Hermes.

The picture was definitely her. The information, hers.

And the note...

_‘Founding member of Dahngrest Guild Registration #3045 (Brave Vesperia). Disappeared shortly after Insertion.’_

Then Flynn noticed something.

The Insertion Date listed was _prior_ to Yuri’s.

His eyes drifted over the Soul’s name and information. Fire Dancing through the Ice. Former Fox. Not as old as Scout and Golden, or even the triplets, but it seemed she’d spent four lives on Glasheim prior to coming to Terca Lumereis.

Preference for agile female Hosts.

Which was exactly what Judith was.

Flynn leaned back against the couch and frowned at the screen in front of him.

“That’s not a good face.”

And then promptly _dropped_ the screen in his hands, because when the hell had Golden gotten here?!

Golden reached down, picked up the datapad, and handed it over without even a glance at the screen. “Are you okay?”

Flynn nodded, then glanced at Sodia, who was doing her best to look small and unobtrusive, and then looked up at Golden again and braced himself. “Would Scout send a message to a friend of his Host to try to eliminate what he may perceive as a threat?”

There was a pause as Sodia gaped at him and Golden frowned. A long moment spent in tense silence was then broken up by a decided shake of the head.

“No.”

Golden’s confidence in his answer didn’t actually help as much as Flynn hoped it might have under other circumstances.

Which was why he lined up Judith and Yuri—he was _sure_ it was Yuri, even if that information wasn’t listed—on the database, and then held the tablet out for Golden to take again.

“...Flynn?”

Sodia’s voice was small, quiet. Afraid in a way he’d never heard before. Golden glanced at her once before taking the tablet and immediately frowning, no doubt seeing his brother’s designation as one of the two listed.

Which left Flynn to come clean, he supposed.

“Golden covered our tracks for us when this started,” he admitted bluntly. “Including cleaning up the evidence of someone Soulless tampering with the database.”

He got a violet-eyed glare for that. “And you never mentioned anything before now because...?”

Golden sighed. “To be fair, which one of the two of you was more likely to be caught once the Occupation started?”

“And you had enough on your mind already,” Flynn added. “You didn’t need to be worrying about Golden on top of everything.”

“Golden?”

“My name. Golden Mists in the Morning,” Golden said, voice soft. “...Flynn?”

“Hm?”

“That note you said Yuri sent you right before you two decided to stay in Zaphias despite the Infiltration...”

Flynn’s blue eyes rose to meet blue-green, and something in his expression must have clued Golden in on _why_ he was so worried.

Which led to the Soul biting his lip as he looked at the datapad again. It took a moment for Golden to speak again.

“...I don’t know. It doesn’t sound like something Scout would do, at least, and you said...” Golden stopped suddenly and frowned. “What if it was Judith? You said it was very possible that finding out _someone_ in the guild had become a Host had spooked Yuri...”

Flynn leaned back and considered this. “You think Yuri caught on to Judith, and then got Scout Inserted into his head right before they left Dahngrest, or, Mists forbid, _as_ they were leaving Dahngrest.” He crossed his arms and shook his head. “One issue with that, though. The note specifically said that Judith and Ba’ul would be looking for me.”

Golden grimaced. “You _didn’t_ mention that earlier, but that...” The Guide sat the datapad on the table and found a spare armchair to flop into. “Fuck.”

Sodia’s squeak of surprise was not something Flynn had heard for a while, and he’d forgotten how _funny_ it sounded. So, unable to help himself, he laughed.

And got punched for his efforts.

Not that he’d been expecting anything else, to be honest.

Golden, though clearly amused by the exchange, was still grim, and that more than anything scared him.

“Golden?”

He sighed and dropped his head into a hand, the other arm still lazily thrown over the side of the chair. “As far as I can see it, there are two options left, and I don’t like either one, because both implicate Yuri as an Eclipse,” Golden started. Flynn went tense at the last few words, because he’d had to _kill_ an Eclipse a few weeks previous, and he _still_ didn’t know the details on why. “Both scenarios start pretty simple, and given what you’ve told me, I can’t see it going any other way. Scout got Inserted, Yuri didn’t know about Judith, sent that note. Then, though... The lack of contact from either Soul in over two years suggests they’ve either been caught by their Soulless companions and killed, or...” Golden sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Well. I would hope, coexisting with his Host or not, my brother would send me a message to relay to Sunny.”

The room was silent as the three of them digested this.

“That... happens?” Sodia asked finally. “Souls coexisting with their Hosts?”

She got two nods in response, but it was Golden who spoke. “It’s not usually a peaceful coexistence, mind you. The Host is usually not willing to share with the Soul. But there have been cases in the past where Soul and Host would coexist peacefully. Scout’s the sort to not really give a damn about the rules, so I could see him and Yuri getting along—“

“Fire Dancing through the Ice and Judith, too, probably. From what I was able to glean from her profile, she would get on excellently with her Host,” Flynn piped up.

Golden nodded absently. “We’ve had a lot of issues with Krityans being aware, too. The chances of Judith having been buried under Fire’s mind are slim to none. Yuri, though... He was marked as a dangerous target when Silver sent the Seekers for him. Repede’s attitude toward Silver wouldn’t have been enough to tip him off and keep him awake after Scout’s Insertion.”

“What’s an Eclipse, when applied to Hosts?” he asked finally.

Watching Golden cringe made him feel a bit bad, because it was clearly not something that came up often, but...

“The term is two-fold. Either a Host mind that _cannot_ be Eclipsed by a Soul’s mind, which is what I believe Yuri to be, or a Host mind that Eclipses the Soul’s mind, effectively taking over the Soul. The second type is _extremely_ dangerous, because the Host _becomes_ the Soul, and it’s why our newly-split young have to be screened carefully before being transferred into Incubation pods,” the Guide said softly. “If we’re _lucky_ , about half of the offspring of a Parent are virile. The rest... they live, for a little while, but they will wither eventually. And if we Inserted a ‘sterile’ infant Soul into a Host, we have a guaranteed Eclipse.”

“So... basically, the first type of Eclipse can force the Soul into the relative background of their mind?” Sodia asked.

“Yes. Which would explain Yuri’s note, if Judith and Fire are or were keeping their coexistence quiet.”

Again, silence fell for a long few moments.

Then...

“Do you have to be a Seeker to do stuff like undercover ops?”

Flynn blinked, once, twice, and then looked up at Sodia like she’d lost her mind. Violet eyes met blue, and he thought over it.

“Honest answer? I have no clue. I’m not even aware if undercover ops post-Occupation are a thing,” Golden said.

“They are,” he said, voice soft as he continued to think. “Usually it’s no big deal. A single Soul gone batty, or a couple Soulless hiding in plain sight but actively trying to sabotage the system. We have to get close to them to bring them in and shut them down.” But nowhere in the Code, general or Seeker-restricted, did it say that only a Seeker could perform undercover operations.

Though, he did have to wonder... “Why? What were you planning on doing?”

Sodia reached into the bag he carried on patrols and drew out a flashlight, deliberately shining it toward her face. “I can prove I’m still Soulless. If I can get into one of the Soulless camps, and I think I’ve got a few ideas of where some might be...” She stopped here and put the flashlight away, a rather torn expression on her face. “Flynn... You know I keep track of the Soulless attacks on the cities. And... I know there’s probably a few camps out there that aren’t hurting anything and would be perfectly happy if we just left them alone. The others, though? The ones sending people to hurt us?”

“You’re volunteering yourself as... well. A scout,” Golden mused.

Sodia nodded. “I don’t want to name places off because... again, some of the Soulless are probably happy to pretend none of the rest of us exist, and I don’t know how many Seekers would be willing to let a whole settlement go,” she said. “That, and... again. By now, they’ll know all the tricks to figuring out if someone’s actually Soulless or not.”

“But the light in the eyes trick is the only one that works every time,” Flynn murmured.

“Well. Unless you’ve got a Soul and Host coexisting and the Soul’s in the proverbial back seat.”

Golden was graced by two sets of wide, confused eyes, and watching the blonde roll his eyes reminded Flynn that this _was_ one of the oldest surviving Souls. “I mean it. If Yuri, or Judith, is in control and someone shines a light at their faces, the rings won’t appear. As soon as Scout or Fire slips up front though, they’re back. I’ve seen it happen before.” The grim expression he wore begged them _not_ to ask about the details, though.

“Will they have figured that out yet?” Flynn wondered.

“Whatever camp Yuri and Judith are in, if the Soulless haven’t tried removing Scout and Fire, yes. By now I’m sure they’ve figured it out. The other camps, though? Probably not, not unless they’re all in contact and sharing information around,” Golden said. “That said, does it need to be a Seeker? Or, I guess I should be asking if you know.”

Flynn chuckled. “She doesn’t need to be a Seeker, no.” He stopped and frowned. “It does need to go on file, though, and that kind of paperwork...” He bit his lip and considered it. The paperwork for the mission _alone_ would have to be signed off on by at least three Senior Seekers, and Flynn was nowhere _close_ to being a Senior Seeker even if he was one of the highest-ranking Seekers in Zaphias. Then there would be the paperwork needed to have Sodia be the undercover agent, which alone would be double what a Seeker would need to fill out because they would need to make sure she had the skills needed and could _do_ it.

That, unfortunately, included Insertions and Extractions.

And all of that was disregarding handler paperwork. He’d be vying to be her handler, of course, but the chances he’d be given that duty were up in the air.

“Alright. Let me see if I can phrase this correctly. How many Senior Seekers do I need to dig up blackmail on to get this done _quietly_ and without getting you two caught?”

Flynn felt he was entirely justified in picking up one of the throw pillows behind him and throwing it at the blonde. He was rather amused when Sodia did the same, only to stop, make a face, and then look at him. Violet eyes slowly drifted back over toward Golden before she shook her head. “You’re weird.”

“Yes, yes, we’ve established that. Quirkiness is a privilege of the elderly.”

Flynn snorted. “I think you’re _past_ ‘quirky,’ old man.”

He got a tongue stuck out at him for that one.

“Okay, but seriously, Flynn. How badly do I need to be prepared to get the paperwork _lost_ for this to work officially?”

He sighed and pulled his datapad back over to himself, fingers dancing across the screen with an ease that... really wasn’t faked anymore. Soul technology made _everything_ easier, and sure, it was fun to do stuff the hard way sometimes, but it was a choice now.

“We need three signatures to get approval to send _anyone_ undercover. Senior Seekers for those. Another two, this time Healers, to approve Sodia as she’s not a Seeker. And then there’s the issue of whomever ends up being her handler. I’d like to do it myself, but the chances of _that_ going through even if we get past the other two roadblocks... And...” He stopped here and looked at Sodia. _Really_ looked at her, in a way he hadn’t for _years_ because she’d proven herself time and time again in the field and he didn’t _need_ to measure her worth when he _knew_ she would be there at his back.

She looked at him with confusion in her eyes, and the slightest hint of hurt.

So he took a deep breath and said the three words that Golden had hesitated over two years ago.

“Insertions and Extractions.”

He watched as violet eyes went blank, her mind not yet computing those words, before it was replaced by shock, horror, excitement, and finally, thoughtfulness.

“You needed to know the Insertions, because you can’t always bring someone in quietly, or you don’t have the necessary supplies. Extractions for Souls whose Hosts are too damaged to continue, and too far out for a Healer to do it,” she mused. She shifted, posture slumping a little as the shock wore off and she continued to think. “And I’ll need to know for similar reasons. _Especially_ if I’m getting sent into Soulless Camps.” She bit her lip here. “I can’t risk letting them find out I know, though. Not unless I have no other choice. I’ll get maneuvered into a position where I’ll have to Extract Souls from any Host they manage to capture.”

Flynn let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

He’d been right to tell her, then. There’d always been the risk, but for Sodia to prove him wrong here...

It took a weight off his shoulders that had been there for far too long.

“We can always practice on Flynn. He still doesn’t have an Insertion scar,” Golden piped up. “Actually...” Blue-green eyes looked toward him.

“Sodia has one,” he said simply. “But there’s nothing under it.”

And Sodia, with a frown on her face, reached back and rubbed at the spot, fully able to feel the thin line of a scar that helped keep her safe. “How the heck did you manage so long _without_ a scar?”

Flynn gave her an unamused look. “You’ve _seen_ the coat I wear when I’m on-duty.”

“Good point,” she conceded. “Do we want to do this _now_ or save it for another day?”

Golden shrugged. “May as well do it now. Flynn’s got the medicines in his bag, and Sunny’s cryopack. Unless you have an issue with it.”

Sodia’s response was a muted glare, followed by reaching for the bag in question. A little digging and checking of labels, and then a wicked smirk he hadn’t seen in a while and... hadn’t actually missed, he decided.

“Good night.”

Yeah, Sleep was good for that.


	7. Duke

It was one thing, Flynn mused, to be one of the Seekers on-call during a Soulless raid.

It was something else entirely to be the only Seeker still standing against a Soulless raid.

Or, well, the only official Seeker.

“If Yuri could see us now...”

“Considering he’s either dead or locked up with a Soul in his head right now, I think he would be the least of our issues,” Flynn muttered crossly.

“You’re going to have to debrief me on that later,” Duke Pantarei replied. “We have a mission to complete.”

Flynn grimaced as he watched the Soulless move around, noting where they were piling the Souls they’d _killed_ , and where they were putting their ‘prisoners.’ “You mean _I_ have a mission to complete, and _you_ need to get out of here.”

“I’ve been allowed to roam free this long. While I’m fully aware that ending up with a Soul in my head is still a possibility, I _have_ assisted Souls in raids like this before.”

“You’re not in the system,” Flynn pointed out.

“And you are?”

“Yes. Sunny’s Partner is the Soul that got Inserted into Yuri. If they’re both dead... Well.”

Duke was silent for a long moment, and when he spoke, it was back to the matter at hand with the subject, rather than continuing along the previous vein. “Four Souls being taken with them. Seven down.” A pause. “I’m not expecting an answer in the positive, but I have to ask; do you know how to perform Extractions?”

“I do, though they’ll have detached from their Hosts upon the Hosts’ deaths. Best estimate says those Souls have about an hour yet before they start dying,” he replied. “They’re not looking to be moving very quickly, though, and there’s too many for just the two of us to deal with.”

“Next question, then. Do you have a can of Sleep?”

Flynn blinked twice, frowned, but pulled the medicine in question out anyway. “Almost untouched, even. I had to replace it a couple weeks ago and the only use since was Golden teaching Sodia Insertions and Extractions.” He pointedly chose not to mention that he’d been the mostly-willing dummy for that particular lesson.

“Excellent. Now for a trick I’ve been told is usually only taught to Healers...” And, wait, where had Duke found a _nail_ —

Flynn didn’t get long to think on it, because one moment, the war veteran had punctured the side of the can with the nail, and the next, the can was spewing Sleep all over the area, notably having been thrown into the midst of the Soulless. Panicked shouts rose up, but since it was a fresh can of Sleep and there was plenty of the drug there to be dispersed by the punctured can, it didn’t take long for the Soulless to fall asleep.

Just to be on the safe side, and because it was making him drowsy from all the way over _here_ , Flynn found the (notably much smaller; he wondered suddenly if the Healers did that on purpose for _this_ exact reason) can of Awake and sprayed a bit in his own face before catching Duke by surprise with it.

“You could have warned me,” the silver-haired man grunted once he’d recovered from the sudden onslaught of grapefruit scent in his nose.

Flynn raised an eyebrow in a pointed ‘right back at you’ before slipping down into the alley where the Soulless were now passed out, withdrawing his datapad as he went. He knew these Souls, knew their names, if not their designations, but that was enough to find them in the database.

At this point, the fact that Duke was untying the Souls who’d been captured instead of dealing with the Soulless or the Souls whose Hosts had been killed didn’t surprise him. Still...

“Check the cart, see if they have any medical supplies. I want to be absolutely sure these guys aren’t waking up before I even thing about Extracting Souls,” Flynn ordered. A little digging, and he found the radio and mic he rarely used. He rarely had _need_ to use it, if he were being honest. Tonight, though, he needed it rather badly. A few taps on his datapad, and the call was put through to headquarters.

It was LeBlanc’s voice that responded, a vaguely familiar Soul who spent most of his time as a mission coordinator nowadays. _“Designation?”_

“SGC-108822, Seeker Flynn Scifo,” Flynn rattled off with a practiced ease. “I’ve got an R4 in Sector L6.” Blue eyes glanced behind him, and he considered what Duke had told him so far tonight. “Eleven Souls down, four with surviving Hosts. Ten Soulless... One still conscious, A9.”

A9 was the code for ‘civilian assist in Soulless capture.’ In this instance, it felt odd applying it to a Soulless, but Duke didn’t look like he planned on leaving.

_“Do you require cryopacks?”_

Flynn glanced over the Soulless. There were enough Soulless to re-home each of the fallen Souls if needed, but... “Nine Soulless, seven Souls, _if_ needed. We caught this fast enough that we’ve still got at _least_ an hour before the Souls start dying.”

 _“Field Extraction and Insertion into new Hosts is an occupational hazard of being a Seeker, but we_ do _have our preferences,”_ the coordinator agreed. _“I’m sending a team your way. Will we need to worry about the Soulless civilian?”_

“No.” Flynn started moving each of the Souls’ bodies, laying them down side-by-side with a Soulless who looked to be the closest in physical appearance to each, _just in case_. If the second team got ambushed on their way here, he would need to be ready to re-home the Souls.

_“Backup team has been dispatched, ETA in thirty minutes. Prioritize Extractions and Insertions based on order of death if they take longer than that.”_

“I’m not _that_ new to all of this anymore, Laughing Tree.”

 _“Sorry, but I have to say it no matter_ who _calls in. You could be Scout From the Origin, and I’d still have to remind you.”_

Flynn sighed as the radio cut out, and he pulled the last Soul into line with the Soulless she would be Inserted into. This was the only female on the squad, and the only female Soulless present, though he had a feeling the Seeker might almost rather have one of the other two males than this female.

Still, procedure was procedure.

Duke stepped up next to him and held out a stack of small boxes—first aid kits. Flynn smiled gratefully and opened one of them, pulling out the small can of Sleep and being sure to spray a bit for all of the Soulless, especially the two that weren’t in line with the rest.

“Do you want me to handle the Insertions? I _was_ taught to do that half, if not the Extractions.”

Flynn glanced up, and then shook his head. “We’re going to hold off for now; there’s a backup team on the way. But if they get delayed... that _would_ be helpful.” It would be a few less steps for him to worry about, at least.

The two of them waited quietly, Flynn noting Duke’s complete and total ease in the midst of this _mess_ , and the way he was rooting through one of the medkits and re-organizing it, as though intimately familiar with the medicines inside and used to a certain organization. _Flynn_ actually re-organized his own medkits when he got fresh ones.

He’d only just settled in next to the first of the Soul-Soulless pairs when the backup team Flynn had called in arrived. The Healers quickly looked over the four injured Souls, and then the seven who’d been killed, and needed Extracted into cryopacks. Duke and Flynn were both praised on their efficient work with stopping the raid, though Flynn wasn’t too surprised when Duke was pulled to the side to be questioned on his involvement.

Judging from the patient expression on the man’s face, this was routine for him.

“Are you alright, Sunlight Glinting off the Crystals?”

Flynn glanced up at the Healer who’d spoken and frowned, but nodded anyway. “Yes. I’m grateful for Duke’s assistance. He pulled me out before they captured me, as well.”

The Healer smiled, offered him a square of Calm—which he took, because refusing it would only make the Healer worry—and moved on.

He was going to have to fill out so much paperwork after this one.

He didn’t leave, though, not until the Seekers stepped away from Duke and let the still-Soulless man wander over in his direction.

Flynn tilted his head to the side curiously. “Why do they let you walk free when I’m pretty sure we’re not _supposed_ to be doing so?” he asked as Duke neared.

The man’s response wasn’t immediate. Nor was it spoken above a whisper when it finally did come.

“A Soul named Fire Dancing through the Ice saved my life when a number of humans mistook me for Soul because I refused to join them. She found me a place among the Souls in Dahngrest, and I suppose the rest, as you might say, is history.”

“When was that?” Flynn asked.

“Two months after the Occupation began.”

Seven months after Yuri had sent that note.

“So she and Judith have probably kept their coexistence secret, and are likely still alive,” Flynn mused.

“You knew Judith was a Host.”

He nodded and got to his feet, turning with the intention to lead Duke to the castle. “Join me for dinner?”

He received a nod in return, but Duke’s expression was Flynn’s warning that he’d best _talk_ on the way.

So he did. He told Duke everything; from finding out about Ioder and the Souls in general before the Occupation began, to slipping into the guise of Sunlight Glinting off the Crystals, to the realizations they’d had not two weeks past about Yuri, Judith, Scout, and Fire. He also spoke of the paperwork that was currently being put through for Sodia to infiltrate the Soulless Camps.

They arrived at his rooms just as he was finishing his explanations, and Duke settled into what Flynn tended to think of as Golden’s armchair and was silent for a while. Flynn didn’t press, instead using his datapad to send a message to the kitchens that he’d returned and would like dinner, and that he had company for that evening.

He also took the time to go through the few notices that had popped up since he’d put the call in for reinforcements. One was a general ‘do not spread knowledge of the Soulless civilian’ warning from his higher-ups—like he _needed_ that warning—and another was the list of paperwork he needed to fill out.

The third, though...

It was a message. A single word. The sender’s info was limited to five numbers: 10144.

_Sunny?_

Flynn’s fingers went numb along with the rest of him, his shock strong enough to negate the effects of the Calm he’d taken nearly an hour ago now. The datapad slid through his fingers and crashed to the floor, even as his heart pounded in his chest.

Scout.

Scout had finally sent a message.

A single, worried, disbelieving message, because Sunlight Glinting off the Crystals was a Dancer with a preference for female Hosts, and he was... not. He was male, and a Seeker, and just... _not_.

“Flynn?”

There was a knock at the door before Flynn could gather up his wits enough to respond to Duke, and his shock kept him rooted in place _still_ even as the silver-haired man got to his feet and answered the door.

“Oh! Good evening! You must be Flynn’s guest, then.”

“Ah, is that our dinner?”

“Yup!”

“Mm. Thank you.”

“You’re both quite welcome. Let me know if you need anything else~” The Soul was gone a moment later, the door closed, and Duke laid the two covered dinner trays on the table before picking up the datapad Flynn had dropped and frowning at it.

“...Flynn?”

He reached out wordlessly, accepting it back and then continuing to stare at the single word of the message.

What should he do? He wanted to respond, but how? What to say? Should he wait until morning and speak to Golden before he replied, or...

“What’s wrong?” Duke asked, clearly starting to worry about the shocked state Flynn found himself in.

And Flynn, so used to the remarkably honest life of a Soul, told him.

“SFO-010144 is Scout.”

And, with that said aloud, Flynn typed in his response, a single word just as the message he had received was, and hit ‘send.’

_Scout?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one had to undergo some editing before being posted because I realized (a tad late) that the backup team shows up fast enough that Flynn and Duke didn't NEED to re-home the Souls whose Hosts had been killed.


	8. Yuri

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, never been the best with posting schedules. T_T

There was never a response to his message. Flynn had wondered, for almost three months, whether he was going to get a response or not, but as it had crept past the four month mark now, he had resigned himself to the fact that the answer was ‘no.’

A part of him greatly feared for Yuri’s sake. What would Scout do, if he believed Sunny to be... what? Endangered? Held captive? They couldn’t really pass her off as having been an emergency Insertion. No, the system said that she’d been rather deliberately Inserted by Golden Mists in the Morning, so...

Now Flynn worried for Golden’s sake. Forget worrying about what Scout would do—what would _Yuri_ do to the Soul he might believe had ‘killed’ Flynn by Inserting Sunny? Then again, Sunny wasn’t a Seeker. Never had been, and never would be when it was actually _her_ and not... him.

What would Yuri do to _him_ if he found out how Flynn had been living these last two and half years? How much of a betrayal would he consider it that Flynn had chosen the Souls over the Soulless—would _continue_ to chose the Souls over the Soulless?

So, needless to say, he was rather easily distracted nowadays. Easy to get back on task, because he’d always been a good soldier, and he had people to protect, a job to do, _a Calling to answer_ , but still easy to distract when he was off-duty, when it was nothing but him and his thoughts in his rooms in the palace.

Certainly, there was the occasional visit from Golden, or even more rarely, Duke, but with Sodia having left on her mission roughly a month after discovering Duke to be Soulless and receiving that message, it was a good deal quieter.

Which was why, when the five-month mark came with the rumors of a hostile Soulless sneaking around the Lower Quarter, Flynn didn’t initially connect the dots the way he really should have.

“How bad’s the situation?” he asked as he entered the briefing room. He was running late, but to be fair, he’d gotten stopped by no less than _six_ Healers on the way here, all of them asking if he knew anything about a late shipment of medical supplies. The answer was no, but some of them hadn’t accepted just a straight ‘no’ and it wasn’t polite to brush them off, no matter how late they were making him.

“One Host killed, a Seeker who’d been on patrol at the time. There was an anonymous call placed from his datapad that led us to him before the Soul died. We’re not sure if it’s the killer’s work or not, but as other evidence suggests we’re working with a Soulless here, I’m going to assume not,” Laughing Tree stated.

Flynn frowned. “No one’s seen the Soulless?”

“No. Whoever he is, he’s doing his damndest to keep himself hidden,” Sings a Silly Song replied. “Chases the Drakes, the Soul he almost killed, is the only reason we even know he’s male.”

“Was he able to tell us anything else?”

“No. He’d just caught sight of the Soulless when the man attacked. Chases the Drakes did mention that he initially believed the man to be a woman, since the only thing he could discern about his appearance was long hair, but he said the man’s voice gave him away,” Laughing Tree picked back up. “I’ve already set up patrol routes—“

“Are we sure it’s not that Soulless from a few months ago? That... Duke whatever-it-was?”

Flynn wasn’t the greatest at glaring anymore, but what he could muster up was usually more than enough to stop most Souls in their tracks.

Sapphire Crystals blooming like a Rose was a Grade-A pain in the ass, as if the fact that he _refused_ to allow anyone to shorten his name wasn’t proof enough.

“Duke Pantarei is in Aurnion, and still in contact with me. Besides, I’m pretty sure Chases the Drakes would remember his voice,” Flynn said, keeping the worst of his irritation out of his voice.

“The man’s hair was too dark to be Duke, anyway. That light a silver color, he wouldn’t be able to hide in the shadows the way this man’s been doing,” Laughing Tree added.

Something in Flynn froze over as things started to line up.

Long, dark hair.

“Swordsman?”

“...Yes. Possibly left-handed, but as dark as it was and as quickly as he took me down, I didn’t want to say for sure.”

The answer came from behind him, and Flynn glanced back to look at the fairly young man who’d joined them.

Still, all of the clues he’d been handed...

“Flynn? Is something wrong?” Laughing Tree asked.

Blue eyes rose to meet the Soul’s, and Flynn sighed, shaking his head and swallowing the words that _wanted_ to come out. “You were saying something about patrols?” he asked instead.

There was a moment when he worried Laughing Tree wouldn’t accept that, but then the man nodded and turned back to the hologram in front of him, tapping a few things on his datapad to light up a set of colored lines that wound all around the Lower Quarter.

“I’m sending everyone out in groups of two. Stick together, and keep your radios on hand. Our Soulless obviously isn’t afraid to kill, and I’d hate to lose any of you,” Laughing Tree stated. “I’ll have the patrol routes forwarded to each of you, but for right now... Sapphire, Kyanite, you two should head out as soon as we’re done here.”

Everyone fastidiously ignored Sapphire Crystal blooming like a Rose as he promptly began complaining about Laughing Tree shortening his name.

“Flynn, I want you and Argonite, who I know isn’t here at the moment, down here in about two hours.”

Flynn frowned. That meant they were getting the evening-to-midnight shift, which was... both good and bad.

Good, because it meant he’d probably get to confirm his theory on who the Soulless in the Lower Quarter was.

Bad, because if he was right, the fading light would give Yuri the advantage. Souls in general didn’t have good night vision, and Flynn always worked better before dawn, when the sun was just starting to lighten up the world, but wasn’t peeking over the horizon yet.

As soon as assignments were passed out, Flynn retreated back to his rooms in the castle, sitting down and penning a letter for Golden, who would no doubt come looking for him at some point, regardless of whatever happened tonight.

It wasn’t long, more a status update than an actual letter, but keeping his friend apprised of what was going on was a necessity, and he left the letter sitting on the fireplace mantle before heading out, prepared to treat this like it was a routine patrol.

Argonite was a quiet Soul. A Seeker, sure, and he did his job well, but he was more than happy to keep to himself when he wasn’t on duty. His Host wasn’t someone Flynn had known, either.

The hours drew on, the shadows growing longer until the sun was no longer staining the sky red and orange, and Flynn looked around, eyes somewhat anxiously tracking every shadow that moved.

It was a stressful night, to say the least, and Flynn didn’t think anything of it when their patrol ended and Argonite bid him a good night and walked away toward a nearby apartment building.

He wasn’t a block away when the voice cut through the night.

“Flynn?”

He froze, because he hadn’t heard that voice in _years_ , but _damn_ had he missed it. His eyes slid closed as he took a deep breath, and he let it out along with a name.

“Yuri.”

One, two, three, four, five, six steps, and then Yuri stopped. “...Sunny?”

Flynn opened his eyes, and turned so he was facing his childhood friend... and the Soul sharing Yuri’s head. A flick of the wrist he’d mastered over the last couple years, and the dancing silver rings told him all he needed to know.

“Golden got worried when you went off the grid. He didn’t want to risk Inserting her if you’d been killed,” he said plainly.

Dark eyes, more silver than grey even disregarding the brilliantly-silver rings around the pupils, slid closed, and Scout let out a quiet sigh. “That... sounds like my brother.” A moment, and then Scout’s eyes opened again, silver rings confirming, again, that it was still the Soul in charge. “She’s safe, then?”

Flynn nodded. “Yes.”

“I’m surprised you stuck around as a Seeker of all things.”

“Souls are people, too, and there’s nothing that can be done for those that have been under too long,” Flynn pointed out. “I swore to protect the innocent _years_ ago. If keeping that vow meant staying on as a Seeker...” He stopped there and shrugged. “And, I might be the only Soulless officially registered as a Seeker, but Duke’s been helping out too.”

The silver rings disappeared rather suddenly, and Flynn eyed where they’d been interestedly for a moment before giving his full attention back to Yuri.

“So you’re willingly helping them enslave what’s left of us?”

Flynn’s mouth tightened as he fought to keep from snapping right back at his old friend.

“How many people, Souls _and_ Hosts, have the remaining Soulless _killed_ trying to cut the Souls out?” He was somewhat grateful that Yuri obviously felt ill at that comment, but... “Just a few months ago, I got _lucky_ and Duke pulled me out of one _hell_ of a mess. Seven Souls’ Hosts had been killed, four more were captured, and the raiding Soulless were just about to leave. He got me out by chance, Yuri. And they would have killed _us_ too if we’d been any less careful. I don’t _like_ Inserting Souls. But if my options are Insertion or a half-dozen dead Souls... The Soulless weren’t getting out of Zaphias anyway.”

Their little standoff grew silent, tense. Yuri’s eyes went unfocused after a moment, which meant he was probably arguing with Scout now...

He should bring him in. There was no doubt Yuri was responsible for Chases the Drakes’ last Host being killed, but if the Healers realized he was an Eclipse, Scout would be Extracted and Yuri killed.

And then, with a suddenness that caught Flynn entirely off-guard, Yuri shot forward, sword sheathed, but with a clear intent to attack.

He couldn’t move fast enough to get out of the way, and Yuri was never aiming to _hurt_ him, anyway.

He knew he’d still have one hell of a headache when he woke up, though.


	9. Soulless

It wasn’t really a good thing, Flynn mused, that he woke up to find himself bound to the hospital gurney he was laying on.

And the only reason he knew it was a hospital gurney before even opening his eyes was because of the uncomfortable hardness of it and the fact that most beds didn’t have conveniently-placed bars along each side.

So he took a deep breath and opened his eyes, blinking away the brightness of the lights overhead. They weren’t really that bright, but for some reason... Oh, wait.

Light sensitivity and a dry mouth and throat, but no other symptoms? Someone must have been dosing him with Sleep.

That would also explain why he didn’t have a headache when his last memory was of Yuri launching himself at him with the clear intention to knock him out. He’d _been_ asleep for a while.

Pink and white drew his eye, and, perhaps not surprisingly, at this point, Estelle stepped up to his bedside with a cheery smile. “You’re awake!”

Flynn didn’t bother to hold back the tired and all-too exasperated sigh. “Yuri kidnapped me.”

Estelle paused in reaching for something he couldn’t see—or rather, hadn’t bothered to try to look at yet—blinked a couple times, and then giggled. “Yes, well, no one ever accused Yuri Lowell of having fits of _sanity_.”

Something about that particular phrasing made Flynn snort, because... “Golden said something similar about Scout, once.”

Any mirth that had been in Estelle’s expression left at that statement, her green eyes locked on... huh. They’d gotten ahold of a datapad, it seemed. “Scout’s the Soul in Yuri’s head, right? I think Rita mentioned that once,” she said. It wasn’t a question, no matter how it had been phrased, and Flynn held himself still with all of the self-restraint he’d learned from living among the Souls.

“Yeah.”

“And Sunlight Glinting off the Crystals is _supposed_ to be in yours.”

He frowned at that wording, and Estelle noticed.

“We checked. I’ve gotten pretty good with the Souls’ medicines, don’t worry. Your scar’s no worse for wear,” she told him. “No Soul, though. That’s... We didn’t realize that was even possible. They don’t tend to let us go, after all.”

Flynn closed his eyes and sighed, this time less exasperated and more exhausted. “No. We usually don’t let the Soulless go. But... We also don’t usually draw first blood if it comes down to a fight.” He dared to look up at the pink-haired healer, and noticed her expression of shock, of _betrayal_.

He knew exactly _why_ she was giving him that look, too.

“I made the choice to stay in Zaphias in the hopes that I might be able to spare a few people being taken over,” he said, falling back on the honesty of the Souls without a second thought. “My decision to become a Seeker was made... partly along the same vein, but partly because... Think about it for me, Estelle. I grew up in the Lower Quarter, and went into the army as soon as I was old enough to enlist. I’ve never known anything else. What was I supposed to do?”

“Leave?”

Flynn tensed at the angry undertones in Raven’s voice, and managed to return the once-Captain-Schwann’s glare with an admittedly weaker one of his own.

He gave himself credit for meeting that gaze at all.

“I know Yuri sent you a message, _before_ the Occupation started. You didn’t have to stay. You _shouldn’t_ have. Judith spent _weeks_ waiting for you to show up and you never did,” the oldest member of Brave Vesperia went on.

His nails were digging into his palms, but what was he to do? He was still tied down to the gurney.

“I don’t regret my choices,” he declared.

Raven’s snarl was barely human, but before the man could continue to berate him, another far more welcome voice cut in.

“Raven, enough.”

Seventeen-year-old Karol Capel didn’t look too much different from the twelve-year-old Karol Capel that had founded Brave Vesperia. He was roughly Estelle’s height now, his hair was a bit longer and messier, his face stripped of what remaining baby fat he might have had, and the axe sword on his back didn’t look so ridiculously out of place anymore. But his clothes were still piecemeal, pulled together from whatever he could find that happened to fit—or mostly fit, anyway—and he still had a red scarf hanging around his neck, though it was worn and frayed and looked about ready to give out.

Raven hissed his displeasure and stalked out of what seemed to be a hospital wing, leaving Karol, Estelle, and a so-far silent Judith behind.

Karol sighed, shook his head, and walked over to stand next to Estelle. Sure enough, at a glance, they appeared the same height. Flynn was willing to bet that Karol was just a bit shorter, though.

“So. Yuri dragged you back here, huh?” Karol seemed decidedly worried, and Flynn frowned and looked away, decidedly uncomfortable here. No matter how much he’d missed his friend, no matter how much he’d worried over Yuri for the last nearly-three years, he wasn’t comfortable here in what was clearly a Soulless camp. “He said you were out the whole way, so I guess you don’t know where you are.”

“No,” Flynn admitted plainly. He didn’t expect to be told, either. Not when he’d made his stance on the Souls and Soulless quite clear.

Karol looked thoughtful, but it was Judith who spoke up next. “He’s going to end up sharing with me and Yuri, isn’t he?”

The teen at the foot of his bed sighed. “Probably.” Brown eyes rose to meet Flynn’s blue. “Everyone in the camp knows that Yuri’s got Scout in his head. We had to move his sleeping area away from everyone else after someone tried to kill him the third time. Given what I heard before Raven started his rant...”

Flynn’s grimace probably said it all.

The fact that Judith was bunking with Yuri, though... He had to wonder.

“Here. I’ll get you untied here and show you around. And hopefully Raven will mind his own damn business...” That last sentence was said a lot more quietly, and since it was obviously not meant for his ears, Flynn chose not to comment on it.

All was very much _not_ well with Brave Vesperia. He would have to be careful. For his sake, for Yuri’s... and for Scout’s and Sunny’s.

Because Sunny wasn’t safe anymore. Not down here, not tucked away in a cryopack and hidden in a false pocket in his bag. Not someplace where she could be _found_.


	10. Options

“So.”

Yuri and Judith both turned to look at him where he sat cross-legged on the cot they’d set up back here. It was obvious why Yuri had been relocated to this particular cavern. The path that led this way was an absolute maze, and Flynn wondered how long it had taken Yuri and Judith to memorize the twists and turns that stretched between their sleeping area and the rest of the camp.

“So?” Judith prompted, a gentle smile on her lips and... He wasn’t sure if he was seeing things or not, but he believed he might have seen just the faintest sheen of silver reaching out from her pupils.

Flynn frowned at Yuri for a long few moments, wondering, debating, before curiosity won out.

“Fire Dancing through the Ice.”

Judith tilted her head to the side. “A Soul friend of yours?”

Flynn had to give her credit. If it was the Soul in control, she was a _damn_ good actor. If it wasn’t... well, _Judith_ had turned into a damn good actor. And considering that Judith was a horrible liar prior to the Infiltration... well, he had a feeling he could give the acting credit to the Soul, rather than the Host.

And _neither_ of them had the reflexes to jerk away—or switch places—before Flynn could confirm that it _had_ been Fire in control, the silver rings reflected back onto the walls around them giving her away before they simply vanished.

And then reappeared, though decidedly fainter, as Yuri promptly busted up laughing.

Or, rather, _Scout_ busted up laughing, hard enough that he fell over onto his side.

Judith sighed, and then the brighter silver rings were back, and Flynn was sat across from Scout and Fire rather than Yuri and Judith.

“Care to share the joke, elder?”

Scout was still snickering as he sat up. “If we needed any proof that _someone_ learned to do his job as a Seeker well, I think we _got_ it. Nice job with the wrist flick, by the way.”

Flynn snorted and put the flashlight away. “Thanks.”

“So... What gave me away?”

And now it was Flynn’s turn to laugh. “I got into the database and started looking up basic physical descriptions for everyone in Brave Vesperia. I recognized Scout’s designation when I was looking for Yuri and figured out from the notes left that it was definitely him, but when I found Judith...”

“You found her registered under me, full information, and probably a note that I’ve gone missing,” Fire mused. “Well, I suppose I did walk into that one.”

“Given how quickly the rings faded, I guess Judith’s _definitely_ still around?”

“Oh yes!” Fire’s smile was a bright thing, warm and full of life. “Judy’s amazing! So is Ba’ul, actually, and I have him to thank for the fact that Judy’s still awake. They’re very understanding. I’m planning to stay on Terca Lumereis for a while, at least. Judy’s still got a long life ahead of her, and I’ve already promised to stay for Ba’ul when she’s gone.” She paused here and frowned, though it was nowhere as deep a frown as Flynn might have expected. “Your turn. You relaxed considerably as soon as we confirmed that I was a Soul. Why?”

Flynn flinched. “Two reasons. First... frankly, we figured out about you _four_ a number of months back. Since you were Inserted before Scout, but Yuri’s note said Judith and Ba’ul would be looking for me...”

“Ooh... You didn’t know what was going on. Hm. That would have been... what, five months before the Occupation?” Fire tilted her head back and forth as she thought, the feathery extensions that were a part of every Krityan’s nervous system swaying back and forth. “That would have been... Oh! Judy was still teaching me how to fight properly. We actually used that few weeks on our own to _really_ get to know one another, you know?”

“You know... if we get lucky with the timing, we could always make Judy an Eclipse,” Scout piped up.

It didn’t take Flynn long to realize which type of Eclipse the Soul was talking about, either.

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that against the Code?”

Scout’s smirk was way too familiar, because that... that was the smirk _Yuri_ gave him whenever he was about to go get himself into a crap-ton of trouble and wanted Flynn to come along for the ride.

“Technically, no. The Code says the Healers have to euthanize the sterile offspring as soon as possible once they’ve separated them all out. If one or two get... _misplaced_... into Hosts, and then Extracted... well, they’re not sterile anymore, now are they?”

Flynn blinked. Once. Twice.

Nope, Scout was still wearing that same shit-eating grin.

He groaned and dropped his head into his hands. “You two deserve each other.”

Rather predictably, this only served to amuse Scout further.

“You said two reasons,” Fire said after a moment. Or, wait, no.

Judith. The faint silver rings around her pupils were gone.

He sighed and glanced at the tunnel that led back toward the main camp. “You spend enough time among the Souls, pretending to be one... the act kind of sinks in a little too deep to shake off.”

Scout flinched, though Judith frowned at him, clearly confused. “Your mindset’s shifted to that of a Soul. I kinda figured... the way you talked about that raid. Your ‘we’ is more ‘Souls’ than ‘Soulless,’” Scout said. “Which means you now get to acclimate to the joyous status of ‘parasite’ in the eyes of our lovely co-habitants here in the camp, and never mind that Sunny was never actually Inserted.”

Flynn groaned. “Thank you for putting that in the worst light possible. I was _trying_ to ignore it.”

“Sorry. They’ve put us through too much shit for either of us to care anymore.”

“Then why do you keep coming back? Or rather, if Yuri’s as sick of it as you are, why does _he_ keep coming back?” Judith asked.

There was a long moment’s silence, and Flynn peeked out from between his fingers.

Scout—or Yuri, he wasn’t sure—stared at the ceiling of the cavern, mouth little more than a grim line.

“...I can’t do it.”

Yuri, then.

“I can’t justify Inserting Souls into the surviving Soulless, even in a situation like you had to deal with months ago,” he continued.

“You don’t have to be a Seeker. Any other Calling, and the chances of even _encountering_ Soulless drop to negligible numbers,” Flynn pointed out.

Yuri snorted. “Yeah, but... Scout’s Callings are Researching and Teaching, never mind how often he gets _stuck_ as a Seeker. And can you see me doing either of those?”

Flynn sighed. “Yeah... no. I guess I can’t.”

“...That’s why I keep coming back. Karol, Estelle, Rita, Repede, Judith... though, neither of us knew about Fire.” Yuri scowled in Judith’s general direction for a moment before the expression was gone, replaced again with the face of a man who had no idea where to go from here. “We’ve got friends here. And I mean it when I say ‘we.’ Rita and Karol are both pretty fond of Scout.”

He sat up straight and shrugged, trying for a nonchalant expression and knowing already that he’d failed. “You could always do what Sodia did.”

Yuri looked over at him slowly, with a frown on his face that said, loud and clear, ‘...what?’

“She didn’t want to stay on with the Seekers, so she’s... basically been dabbling in everything by helping people out,” he explained.

Yuri still looked confused.

“Sodia’s still...?”

“Yup. Agate... something or other that I forgot because it’s long and I don’t really care because I just call her Sodia or Agate, anyway.”

Yuri and Judith got a good laugh out of that one, at least.

“Agate’s probably a Minnow name, right?” Yuri asked after a moment.

“It is.”

“Huh...” Yuri frowned again rather suddenly, and then twisted and reached under his cot, dragging out a bag and rifling through it until...

“Is that a sketchbook?” Judith asked. Flynn noted slightly more silver than charcoal eyes. Scout, then.

“Yeah. Karol was asking about some of the Hosts I’ve had on other worlds and... well. I’ll never be Minnow, that’s for sure, but it’s not _horrible_ ,” Scout replied, flipping to a page and holding it out. “Speaking of Minnows, that’s... again, I’m not an Artist, and neither is Yuri, so it’s not great. But it’s...”

“Good enough. Better than anything I could manage, at least,” Flynn cut in. And, indeed, it was, though... “Is this supposed to be a human?” He tapped what could be called a glorified stick figure in the corner.

“Yeah, for size comparison.”

“So, the Minnows were roughly Ba’ul sized,” he said, holding the sketchbook to the side a bit so Judith could look over his shoulder.

“And shaped. Though, very definitively aquatic,” Scout agreed.

“So, out of curiosity, how do you Insert Souls into something like that? They don’t have opposable thumbs or anything,” Judith asked. She held her hand up in a ‘wait’ motion before Scout could answer, though, and Flynn only caught the switch from violet to a silver-tinged violet because he was watching for it.

“Probably the same way the Foxes did it. I know there are three Host species on Shining Blue, and two on Glasheim. The Foxes always had the Angels Inserting the Souls. Little bit messy, but it was cold enough to emulate cryopack temps anyway, so if a Host got killed, as long as the Soul was exposed to the air quickly enough, it’d keep a lot longer than most other worlds,” Fire said.

Scout hummed. “I’ve never been to Glasheim. It got settled while I was occupied elsewhere, and... honestly, the Foxes didn’t really sound interesting enough to warrant overriding standard orders to forward me to the next Infiltration. The Angels did, but I don’t have enough attachments for one.”

Fire giggled. “Most Souls don’t. Was I right, though?”

Scout lifted a hand to make a so-so gesture. “Depended on which Arc you were in. The Green Arc relied on the Crystals for Insertions, as did the White Arc, but the Red Arc relied on the Gulls. The rest? The Minnows actually _can_ Insert and Extract Souls on their own, it’s just... a bit difficult, if you don’t know what you’re doing.” He stood up, walked over, and tapped on what looked rather like one of the feathery extensions sprouting from Judith’s head, if a bit thinner and more tufty at the end. “These feelers are prehensile, and some of these fin spines are actually _really_ sharp. Blue Minnow Healer, or rather, Healer Blue Minnow, and yes, his designation got mucked up a bit, set the record for fastest Insertion, _repeatedly_ , and never mind that he spent most of his lives swimming back and forth between the Gold Arc and the Green Arc. If an Insertion or Extraction was needed, he was there to do it.”

“Hm... That’s interesting. I didn’t realize the Minnows could actually do more than... well, swim,” Fire admitted.

Scout chuckled. “I spent three lives on Shining Blue before I couldn’t ignore the call for an Infiltration Specialist anymore. Personal record so far for most consecutive lives on a single world, too.”

“That’s Sunny’s homeworld, though.”

Flynn would have done anything for that warm smile to actually be _Yuri’s_ , rather than an action taken by the Soul currently sharing his body.

“Exactly.”


	11. Discomfort

“We can’t risk it!”

Flynn froze mid-step in a tunnel, immediately searching out Raven’s voice. The man was one of the most adamant anti-Soul supporters in the camp, and that was saying something, considering multiple people had tried to kill Yuri in the past.

“You say that like he hasn’t proven himself enough in the last two months—“

“His ‘we’ is still those damn parasites, Karol!”

Oh boy. He needed to get out of here before he got caught eavesdropping. Raven was definitely _not_ in his corner, thank you very much, and Flynn did _not_ want to cross paths with him any more than was necessary.

“So?”

“So?! How can you say ‘So?’ like it doesn’t matter?!”

“It doesn’t.”

Flynn stopped and frowned. Karol sounded tired, and upset, and not at all the enthusiastic little boy Flynn had met years ago.

“If he goes back now, they’ll catch him. Regardless of whether he thinks like a Soul or not, they’re gonna put one in his head if they realize there isn’t one already there.”

Karol sounded so sure of that, and yet...

 _“I’ve been allowed to roam free this long. While I’m fully aware that ending up with a Soul in my head is still a possibility, I_ have _assisted Souls in raids like this before.”_

Duke was allowed to wander free. If he reported the camp, sent the Seekers this way, _led_ then here, even...

But there was one issue with that.

For one thing, he still didn’t know exactly where this camp was, though something about it was bizarrely familiar. And even if he did know where they were... Well. Raven had made sure there were escape routes all over the place. Flynn only knew where one was, and he hadn’t been allowed to go up to the surface, only shown which tunnel to go to.

Someone would notice if he went missing for any amount of time, too, which was why he hadn’t risked trying to make the run to the surface to figure out where they were.

He finally found his way to the makeshift hospital, and smiled when he found Estelle right where he’d been hoping she would be.

“Do you have a moment?”

The former-princess jumped, clearly startled, and he offered up a sheepish smile. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine! I just... haha. I was just... um.”

Oh dear.

Flynn tilted his head to the side and finally noticed what was in her hands. “So, where’d you guys get the datapad?” His was still in his bag, after all, given back to him by Karol, because he couldn’t get a signal down here, and so the teen wasn’t worried about him getting a message out.

Estelle sighed and sat back down. “Rita found it in a bag she was going through.”

“...That bag didn’t happen to belong to a Seeker prior to it falling into her hands, did it?” he asked, already knowing the answer from the grim look on the young woman’s face.

“It did.”

Flynn took a deep breath, and then another. One more, and then... “How many...?”

“Just the one,” Estelle said quickly. She looked away, grip tight on the datapad. “Just the one. Raven thinks we should keep trying, but... The way Yuri reacted...” The datapad was turned off, dropped on the table next to her, and her arms wrapped around her middle. “I’ve never seen him cry, Flynn. Never. Not for the people he killed, not for the people who got hurt in the crossfire, not even for the kids we had to watch be taken away to have Souls Inserted. He always got _angry_ , started raging at the world for the injustice, but...” Shiny, tear-laden green eyes rose to look at him. “He _cried_ for them. Soul and Host both. And Rita thought for sure it was the Soul in his head crying, but when she pulled out the flashlight, the rings... they just weren’t there.”

He sat down on the spare stool, unable to meet Estelle’s eyes much longer. Because he knew... He understood.

“...I told you... a long time ago now... that Yuri and I spent a few years on the streets after my dad died,” he started. “There was one point, when it was mid-winter... We were both sick. Me more than him. We didn’t have _anything_ , Estelle. And... Yuri cried then, too. Because the two of us were going to die, and there was nothing he could do to save either of us.”

Just like there was nothing Yuri could do to save himself and Scout if they’d knocked him out and tried to Extract the Soul.

“So... were you looking for me for a reason, beyond asking about... that?” Estelle asked softly.

He took another deep breath, and then shrugged. “I was just wondering why no one’s asked me if I know anything about Extractions yet.”

“Would you tell us even if you did?”

He considered that question for a long few moments, still silent as Estelle picked up the datapad and went back to whatever she’d been doing before. It wasn’t an easy answer, anyway.

If he told them, they’d be able to Extract Souls, probably including Scout and Fire. He’d definitely regain their trust, which would give him the chance to get to the surface and maybe contact the Souls to put a stop to this before it got any worse. The issues with that, though...

For one thing, there was no guarantee that things wouldn’t get way worse before the Souls could get to them. And for another...

“If I taught you how to Extract Souls, what would happen to the Souls?” Flynn asked softly. He already knew the answer Raven would give—they’d leave the Souls to die as they always did outside cryopacks—but Estelle was a Healer, so normally it would fall to her...

Green eyes looked at him, confused, sad, and reluctant. “...I don’t know. I guess... Most Souls probably don’t realize there’s anything _wrong_ with this, do they?”

Flynn shook his head. “No, not really. The younger Souls tend to get an inkling, but they get kept away from Seeker Callings and Infiltrations for that exact reason.” He shrugged, trying to pretend to be much more relaxed about this conversation than he actually was. “Personally, I’d put them on the outbound rotation. By the time they’d be Inserted again on another world, it will have been over twenty years, minimum. Too late to actually do anything about the mess they left behind.”

Estelle looked a tad like she’d swallowed something sour. “So... why’d they let you keep a Seeker Calling, then?”

Flynn grimaced. “Two reasons. First, Sunny... that’s the Soul I’m _supposed_ to be... she’s old enough that no one would bat an eye at her suddenly deciding to try out a new Calling. Second... As I’ve had to point out to Golden before... Seeking _is_ my Calling. It’s...” Flynn stopped and sighed. How the hell was he supposed to explain this to someone who just didn’t _get_ the Souls and their lifestyle?

“So... Souls’ Callings are more than just their jobs?”

Or Estelle could start to figure it out on her own without him having to struggle to explain it.

“A Calling is kind of a job? But it’s... it’s what we’re good at, what we _like_ to do.” Flynn stopped there, glanced at Estelle, and then let his eyes drift to the ceiling. “Golden’s a Guide. Not, like, tour guide kind of guide. More... Guidance counselor, sort of guide.”

“I’m probably going to regret asking this, but... who... _was_ Golden? Or, did I even know their Host?” Estelle asked.

Flynn winced. “Ioder. Golden Mists in the Morning is the Soul that was Inserted into Ioder.” A pause, and then a shrug. “A tad ironically, Golden is also Scout’s little brother.”

And, good, Estelle found that amusing, even if the amusement faded again almost instantly. Flynn took a deep breath. “If it makes you feel any better... Golden and Ioder probably would have gotten along pretty well if Ioder hadn’t been one of the first hundred or so to have Souls Inserted. It’s _impossible_ to catch that early.” He pointedly _didn’t_ mention Eclipses.

“You say that like Souls can coexist peacefully with their Hosts.”

Ouch.

“They can. Scout and Yuri are probably not the best example, but that’s...”

“So I was right, and Yuri’s running away as much as Scout is.”

“Yeah, from the sounds of it,” he agreed. “So, anyway... A large part of Golden’s job as a Guide involves... well. He showed up at my door practically the day after the Occupation started to talk to me about Callings. Sunny’s usual two are Dancing and Acting, after all.”

Estelle frowned. “Neither of which I could see you enjoying long-term, or even really being good at, in the case of the dancing.”

“Thank you for the unnecessary reminder that I have two left feet,” he muttered. “And, yeah. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy, so... We went with the ‘excuse’ that I was ‘channeling my Host’ for a life. It’s not uncommon; Adecor’s Soul did the same thing. Thing was... As Golden so bluntly pointed out a little over half a year later, and as I’ve already said... there’s a reason we don’t put the young Souls into a Seeker Calling.”

“So because you’re kind of more Soul than human now, I guess that makes you a young Soul.”

“Exactly.” Flynn dared to meet Estelle’s eyes again, only to find the pinkette looking at the datapad in her hands thoughtfully. “...Estelle?”

“You always used to call me Estellise,” she mused. Flynn frowned, having a feeling that had absolutely _nothing_ to do with what was clearly on her mind. No reason not to say something, though.

“I work with a Soul whose full name is Sapphire Crystals blooming like a Rose, and he _hates_ when people shorten it. Throws a pretty good tantrum every time, too. We all tend to call him Sapphire regardless of his tantrums, though, because this language isn’t great for long Minnow names,” he said. “So, yeah. I figured... if you like Estelle, then that’s what I’ll stick to.”

“Huh. Weird. And, what do you mean, ‘minnow names?’ Don’t all Souls have kind of long names like that?”

He shook his head, fully aware of their one-woman audience who’d stopped in the doorway, like that was going to stop him from noticing the red blur in the corner of his peripheral vision. But Scout had said Rita was a friend, so... “Scout’s name is just that, ‘Scout.’ They had to tack on ‘from the Origin’ so they’d have the three letters needed for his designation. Golden’s name is actually considered a Pure Soul name; their mother was the Queen of the Golden Mists, so his name is a direct reference to that, hence the name classification. Actually, if I remember correctly, there are three worlds where you’re going to get _long_ names, and then for most of the rest, three or four words is the standard.”

“Glasheim, Shining Blue, and the White Steppe, right?”

Oh, so Rita _was_ going to join the conversation. “Yup,” he confirmed. “The triplets... that’s Sunny, and her brothers Silver and Minnow, are all from Shining Blue.”

Rita made a face. “Souls reproduce by basically tearing themselves apart. How do you get _triplets_ out of something like that?”

Flynn snorted. “Ten eighty-eight twenty-one. Ten eighty-eight twenty-two. Ten eighty-eight twenty-three. They’re not _actually_ triplets, they’re just a sibling group that happened to have sequential designations, so all of their friends call them triplets,” he explained. “Scout’s ten one forty-four, and Golden’s ten two-oh-two, so even though they’re siblings, there’s a pretty big gap in designations.”

Rita sat on the nearest gurney with a frown on her face. “So, strictly speaking, the number part of a Soul’s designation is just a number assigned to them?”

He nodded. “Yeah. The letters can and will change as a Soul’s true name does, but the numbers remain the same. And no, I have no idea where or why they started counting.”

“There are more than a million people on Terca Lumereis, though. If the Souls’ designations are only in the hundreds of thousands...” Estelle started.

“Most Souls actually never leave whatever world they were born on,” Flynn said. “And there are always a few Mothers and Fathers who separate during the earliest parts of the Infiltration to provide the numbers they can’t get from just importing Souls from other worlds. Most Souls are actually given designations that are unique to their homeworld. The triplets were an exception because their Father had been a world-hopper, and if, say, Sunny were to become a Mother tomorrow, all of her offspring would be given the same style designations as she has.”

“Huh. Sounds confusing.”

Flynn snorted. “And this is why I won’t touch a Healer Calling with a ten-foot pole.”

The girls both laughed at that particular deliverance, and Flynn felt as though a weight had lifted from his shoulders.

He’d probably never be comfortable here, but at least he could be comfortable talking to some of the people he’d known before the Souls had come.


	12. Technology

It was scary, sometimes, how quickly time passed when you were trapped underground. His datapad was his only saving grace when it came to tracking the passage of time, and even without a connection to the main network, it was still _useable_.

Which was why he was helping Rita run inventory in perhaps the laziest way possible.

“Have these crates been opened yet?” he asked, trying—and failing, because this was a bit outside his comfort zone—to see if the seals had been broken.

“Opened to run initial inventory. Those shouldn’t have been touched since they got put in here, just these six here,” Rita replied, gesturing to six of the large crates which were sat against one wall. “Problem is, these things don’t take ink well.”

Flynn made a noncommittal ‘oh really’ noise as he tapped his way through a dozen screens on his datapad. He’d need a signal, even just temporarily, to get the lists from the master database in Zaphias, but for now...

The datapad beeped a confirmation after he tapped it to the side of the crate, a code adding itself to the list he’d have to run. Three minutes, a couple dozen beeps, and a _very_ confused looking Rita later, Flynn stepped up next to her and held out the datapad. “Take it topside so you can get a signal, tap the currently-red button up in the corner, and done.”

“...Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

Rita stared at him for a moment, then looked down at the datapad.

And in the next second, she was gone, and Flynn pulled the lid off one of the crates she hadn’t already been rifling through to see what was left inside it.

Not much, actually. A few wrapped packages of Clean, and a case of Heal. This one must have been purely medical supplies. That definitely explained the little hospital they had set up here.

He pulled the remaining supplies out of the crate and put the lid back on. No reason to keep that little in this large a box, after all.

The next crate was equally as depressing. Just, this was clothing instead of medical supplies. So, again, he pulled out what little was left and moved on.

He’d just finished pulling out more clothing from the third—still just as sad—crate when Rita walked back in, datapad in hand and a little bit of a stormy expression.

“I am such an idiot.”

Flynn paused in his neat re-folding of clothing to give her an amused look. “You never thought to ask Scout for help with this? I guarantee he’d have gone straight for the datapad Estelle keeps in the medbay the second he saw that pile of crates.”

Rita sighed as she pulled herself up onto a crate and sat on it. “Yeah, well... to be fair, most of the time I’m too busy either running damage control between Scout and Raven, or running supplies between here and... one of the other settlements.” She paused, eyes looking at the list in front of her, but clearly not reading it at this point.

Flynn shrugged it off, took the lid off of the fourth crate, and... ooh. This one, he wouldn’t be able to just empty. Looked like blankets and pillows. And... yeah, no that wouldn’t work. He’d have to teach her the trick to this one, too, he mused as he carefully pulled everything out, counted each item, and then packed them back into the crate when he was done.

He’d just sealed the crate again when Rita put his datapad down. “Did you know that Sodia escaped the Souls?”

He’d spent a lot of time acting over the last few years, pretending that helping the Souls didn’t kill him inside a little bit every day early on, and pretending that he wasn’t absolutely sickened by some of what he’d witnessed here in the Soulless camp, lately. But that... yeah, no. That caught him off guard, and he was acutely aware of the way he’d frozen stiff for a moment.

“Uh-oh. I’m guessing that’s a bad sign.”

“...Does Sodia know where this camp is?” he asked.

“No. I’m pretty sure she’d figure it out if she actually thought about it, but no. Do I need to warn the other settlement’s manager?”

Flynn managed to keep from flinching as he considered it. “She’s not a Host, if that’s what you’re asking. Her Insertion scar is a fake, just like mine.”

“So you _did_ know that Sodia was among the Soulless.”

He nodded. “We were hiding in Zaphias together for a while, but... It was grating on her. I helped her get out.” Lies, lies, lies... But he had no idea how Rita would react if she knew the truth. She was pretty chill about Scout, and about Flynn’s own rather more Soul-oriented view of the world, but given what Sodia was doing...

He’d lied, but unless someone found the paperwork, they’d never know. And even if they _did_... they didn’t need to know that the Healer approvals, the other signatures they’d had to get... If Raven believed it all to be forged, then maybe Flynn could write it all off as the excuse he used to get Sodia _out_.

‘Death by Soulless’ was a perfectly valid reason for a Soul to not return from missions like the one Flynn had let Sodia go on. If the ‘real’ reason why she never returned was actually because she’d rather stay among the Soulless... That was an excuse he could sell to Raven.

If the man actually asked.

“So I guess you’d been on your own for a few months by the time Yuri got to you, huh?”

He shrugged. “Well. As on my own as I could get with Golden always dropping by.” He pointedly didn’t mention any of his other Soul friends. Or Duke, for that matter.

“Guess that makes sense.” Rita hopped down from her crate so she could go through it, since he’d gone through all five of the others while she’d been sitting there.

He might have complained about her not doing her share of the work, once, but that was some time ago. Also, she had reason to be distracted.

Rita sighed once they were done. “And now for the frustrating part.”

“And what would that be?” Flynn asked, carefully stacking an empty crate on top of another empty crate. It would normally be a two-person job, since the crates were so large, but Rita was putting the last of the supplies away in the crate she’d spent time sitting on and he could manage on his own.

“Getting the list updated on Estelle’s datapad.”

Flynn paused and smiled. “You’ve been adding the supplies from the open crates to the list we downloaded from the database, right?”

She looked up at him curiously. “Yeah.”

He held a hand out for the datapad. “Want to learn another datapad trick?”

Her eyes lit up, and within moments, the crate had a lid again, and she was all but bouncing at the ‘door’ to this particular side-cavern. “Let’s get going, then!”

He laughed and followed after her, looking over the list as they went.

Getting low on food and medical supplies, he noted. And _plenty_ of blankets and clothes. Rita had mentioned making runs to other camps, though, so he wondered if maybe most of the supplies came through here first before moving on as necessary. Or...

The textiles depot was in Halure. So if they were closest to Halure, that would also explain the excess.

“Oh! Done already?”

Flynn glanced up at Estelle’s surprised question, and he held out a hand, both gesturing to and asking for the datapad in the pinkette’s hand. “You guys use that datapad to track supplies?”

“Yup! And, well, basically anything else we can figure out. It’s pretty nifty, actually!”

Rita snorted. “Oh, wait for it, Estelle. Flynn’s got _tricks_.”

He got a rather adorable confused face for that comment, but Estelle handed over her datapad, anyway, and he opened up the supply tracking. Yeah, looked like it had the last check here, so...

He shifted so Rita and Estelle could see what he was doing. “Menu, file properties, set as master file.” That then booted him back out into the main application. “Menu, update.” He adjusted his grip so he could get to his datapad. “Menu, update.” A tap of the silver bars across the tops of the two datapads, a confirmation beep, and then he put his away. “And now it should...”

“Ooh! It’s updated! And it’s even showing what all changed between the last check and this one!” Estelle realized, scrolling through the list with a grin on her face.

“...Gotta say it. I’m really falling in love with Soul tech,” Rita agreed in her usual trying-to-be-difficult way.

Flynn chuckled. “Try asking Scout for some tips. I only know the basics; I got rotated onto supply duty once every four months at the station in Zaphias, so that’s the only reason why I knew the trick with the crates.”

Rita grinned. “Well know that I know they’re not just fancy little notepads, I’m _definitely_ dragging him around to help me with all the fiddly shit. That was way faster than it usually is,” she mused.

“...What did we just get volunteered for?”

Flynn looked over his shoulder and snorted. “Supply crate manifests. And whatever other tricks you can think of that I don’t know about.”

Yuri—because it _was_ Yuri—looked totally confused.

Then charcoal eyes lightened to silver, and Scout facepalmed. Hard.

“You forget how much easier life is with tech when you’ve been stuck living without it for _years_ ,” he muttered. “You guys only _just_ learned how to download cargo manifests?”

Flynn laughed. “In their defense, trying to reconcile two pieces of tech talking to each other when you tap them against each other really doesn’t sink in until you see it a couple times.”

“How did you ever make it as a Seeker?”

“Your brother is a saint. And also, the supply manifests was about it. Most of my reports went in over the net,” he admitted. “I think I only had one I had to turn in by hand, and that was the one where Duke got involved since administration was keeping it hushed up.”

“...Fair enough.” Scout tilted over until he was slumped against the wall. “You’re all nuts. But oh well. Not much you can do with a single datapad, but if we’ve got Flynn’s now too...”

“Where would the Souls store spare datapads?” Rita asked suddenly.

Flynn and Scout both grimaced. “Nowhere you’d be able to get into without one of us,” Flynn admitted.

“Nowhere they’d be able to get into without _you_. I never got put in the system,” Scout pointed out. “Little side-effect of _someone_ high-tailing it out of Dahngrest the second he realized he was sharing headspace.”

Ooh. Yeah.

“Ouch.”

“Exactly.”

Estelle frowned. “What do you mean? Why would Flynn be able to get in, but not you?”

“Biometric scanners. All Seekers’ Hosts are put into the system once they get through the initial probation period, exception being Level Ten clearance Infiltration Specialists... aka, me and Golden, basically. We’re so old no one gives a damn what we do anymore,” Scout replied. “Unless his status has been changed to ‘confirmed KIA,’ in which case his information will have been pulled, Flynn would be able to unlock one of the storage rooms. I can’t because Yuri was never put into the system.”

Rita frowned. “...Raven’s not gonna like that.”

“You don’t suppose?”

Flynn rolled his eyes as Rita threw a pen in Scout’s general direction, and wasn’t at all surprised when he caught it.


	13. Supplies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I am fully aware that I am absolutely horrible at updating on anything resembling a schedule. It'll all be up by the end of March, I promise. Even if it goes up in random bursts of 2-8 chapters at a shot, because yes, that's about par for the course for me in the posting arena.

“There is something just... _wrong_ about this situation.”

Flynn bit his lip, because...

“You mean _aside_ from the fact that we’re following a guy who’d rather protect the furry maggots than us?”

Yeah, that.

“Please don’t call them furry maggots.”

Karol, Karol no.

“Oh goddess, not you too.”

Karol, stop.

“They’re perfectly intelligent, Raven. Parasitic, yeah, can’t really argue that one. But still intelligent.”

Karol, please.

“Well I sure as hell ain’t calling ‘em ‘Souls.’”

His eyes closed as he mouthed an otherwise silent prayer for Karol to just shut up already.

“What’s wrong with ‘aliens?’”

Yeah, that wasn’t going to work.

“I think I’d have almost rather made this trip with just me and Raven,” he piped up, something a few shades short of annoyance in his voice. He looked over his shoulder at the bickering brunettes and gestured to the earpiece he’d put in a few moments before this last round had started. “Believe it or not, ninety-five percent of the raids made on this particular warehouse get caught because there’s a mic set up in a corner. I’ve got my radio set up for the local Seeker force, so we’ll know if we get caught and can get out in time, but beyond that? Frankly, _shut up_.”

He turned away from them and double-checked the patrol routes in the database.

“You get us _caught_ , and I’ll kill you myself.”

“I heard you the first seventy-eight times,” Flynn muttered back before shooting Raven another weak glare and turning to watch the alley across the way.

They were conveniently hidden by the shadows in _this_ alley, and if he kept his datapad tucked to his chest and his hood up to hide the battery light on his earpiece...

The patrol walked out of the alley right on time, and took a left turn without even noticing the trio of Soulless sneaking around the alley opposite them.

Souls _really_ had bad night vision, Flynn mused. Though, their darker clothing and the fact that they weren’t moving probably helped, too.

Karol was looking remarkably well-put-together, actually, considering the teen’s propensity for being a walking fashion disaster.

Flynn waited barely a minute, then started forward, shooting one last warning look at the two brunettes before he looked around the corner. The Souls were gone, already around the next corner, and that left the door to the warehouse in plain view.

He punched in his code and hoped beyond hope that he hadn’t been pulled from the Seekers’ system, or put on some sort of alert list that he didn’t know about. He could clear out the standard notifications, but the red flags that came up in the system were another story altogether...

The doors slid open without so much as a warning beep, and he let out a quiet sigh of relief. One last warning look and finger to his lips, and they were inside.

He flipped the lights on. There weren’t any cameras or windows, because there were too many cameras around town to put another one here when the hidden mic caught enough, so it felt like a safe enough move.

And it made it a lot easier to get Raven’s attention when the man looked like he wanted to run over to the nearest crate and open it up to see what was inside. He got a blue-eyed glare aimed his way, but he didn’t cave under it, instead pointing to the back wall, where a dozen carts sat in a neat row. They’d be able to fill one and pull the cart out of the city if they were careful.

Sending Raven to get the cart was best, and Flynn glanced over the crates of supplies. If this warehouse was the same as the one back in Zaphias, then _those_ would be medical supplies, and _these_ would be food items.

He walked over and used his datapad to check both, and smiled when he found his guess to be correct. A glance over his shoulder revealed a curious Karol looking at the lists of supplies on his datapad, and he pointed to the medical supplies pile before holding up three fingers.

Three crates, as they’d agreed on with Estelle.

A sharp gesture at the pile currently behind him, and then he spread his hand wide—five—fisted it, and then indicated two.

Ten crates of foodstuffs, because they _needed_ it badly.

Raven rejoined them with the cart and opened his mouth, only to catch himself at the last moment when Flynn glared at him.

Pain in the ass, yes. Willing to do what he said as long as they didn’t get caught? Also yes. Thankfully.

Good _goddess_ but this was stressful.

Karol immediately got to work, shifting one of the crates of medical supplies off the crate it was sitting on, and Flynn gestured for Raven to help him before he headed a couple sections down. These _should_ be...

Yup! Camp generators, heating modules, and fans. He carefully shifted a crate—just one, because Rita had asked nicely and Raven couldn’t veto it if Flynn was making this trip just _that_ much more efficient—so that Karol and Raven would know to add it to the cart.

Then he headed for the back of the warehouse and started up the stairs, heart pounding in his chest.

When given a choice between Halure and Aspio, he’d chosen Aspio specifically for this warehouse. And he’d chosen this warehouse for a _reason_.

He stopped on the landing, took a deep breath, and then stepped up to the keypad. Again, he punched in his code, and this time, a blue square lit up below the main keypad. Heartbeat hammering in his ears, he pressed his thumb against that square...

A beep, a green light, and then the door slid open.

Flynn let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and stepped into the warehouse loft. This. This was the whole reason why Raven had caved and let him do this. Rita hadn’t once stopped pestering the old man since she’d found out some of the more practical uses for Soul datapads, and no matter how much Flynn hated this entire situation, these guys had been his friends once, so he may as well help them.

Besides, Rita, Estelle, and Karol were pretty willing to work with him and Scout, so... That was something, right?

He packed up a half-dozen datapads and their charging stations into a messenger bag and slung it over his shoulder. It wasn’t the lightest load, but it could certainly be heavier.

He left the loft and headed back downstairs to rejoin Raven and Karol.

Raven, who was looking more and more antsy the longer they were in the warehouse. Flynn joined them next to the cart, helping to load where he could and otherwise trying to stay out of the way. The sooner they were done, the better.

“Are we done _yet_?”

Flynn almost dropped his side of the crate as he and Karol put the last of the food crates into the cart, and he immediately turned to glare at Raven, who had his hands over his mouth and an expression that very genuinely said ‘oh _shit_.’

 _‘Hey, did the east-side warehouse warning light go off just now?’_ the radio in his ear crackled to life.

One crate left, and if they’d timed it right, no patrols nearby to catch them as they left. Flynn took off at a jog for the last crate, waving for Karol and Raven to follow.

_‘...One-off. Probably a false alarm.’_

Flynn stopped at the last crate and turned, just in time to see Raven open his mouth as if to speak again.

He pressed a finger to his lips again, and then crossed his fingers that they really were writing it off.

It only took a moment to get the last crate in the cart. Flynn ran back to the entrance and opened the door slowly, carefully, sticking his head out into the street to look.

 _‘Yeah, I’d say false alarm at the warehouse. Literally just one blip. Probably a mouse or something,’_ the Seeker at the main station said. Flynn let out a weak sigh, and hoped his relief wasn’t premature as he waved Karol and Raven out the door, holding it open so they could get the cart through without issue.

Off to the right, down this alley, following the twists and turns...

“Are we safe to talk now?” Karol whispered.

Flynn looked over his shoulder and nodded. “Yeah. In theory. Sounds like they’re writing the mic blip off as a glitch. Thank you for keeping quiet after the one slip,” he added, looking over at Raven.

The elder of the brunettes looked shaken. “So now what? I guess we’re not taking the same path back out...”

Flynn shook his head. “No. We’ll run into a patrol if we do. As it is, we’re going to have to find a corner to back the cart into and stay in for about an hour.”

“I don’t like the idea of sticking around any longer than we need to.”

He grimaced. “Unless a patrol goes somewhere it shouldn’t, we should be okay. And trust me, patrols don’t usually go off the route. It’s something of an unspoken rule that patrols go _bad_ if they go off the route. We keep our heads down and stay out of the way, they’ll pass right by us like they did earlier, and we can go on our way once they’re gone.”

Raven hummed. “And you got the patrol routes for Aspio by...”

“Checking the Seeker notification list for the area. I’d teach you, but the datapads have bio scanners for certain parts of the database, and that’s one of them,” he admitted. “And anyway, it’s not like I don’t already have to go in and delete stuff. Every time I use my code, it gets added to a log. I know how to clear it, I’ve done it in the past fairly regularly, but it’s still something I have to do so they don’t realize I was here.”

“So if the higher ups in the Seekers realized you’d been here...”

“I have no idea. My passcode, they could write off as someone having managed to talk it out of me, but the bio scanner on the second floor is the one I’m really worried about,” he said. “Down here. Let’s get this backed in and then... waiting game time.” And also time for him to pull his datapad back out and start clearing out the logged actions from tonight.

Logged actions... that were already cleared.

What the...

A notification flag popped up in the lower-right corner, and Flynn blinked and tapped it.

It was from Golden, and marked confidential to keep most Seekers from looking at it unless they _had_ to.

_Hope you know what you’re doing, Sunny. Glad to see you’re still alive, at least. Agate was getting worried._

_I’ve got her covered for now, but the sooner you can help clean up, the better, yeah?_

_Take care out there._

“...Flynn?”

He took a deep breath and let it out. “Thank whatever higher powers you guys believe in that Golden decided to be my friend,” he said plainly. “He covered our tracks when Sodia and I first put ourselves in the system, and he’s already cleared my action log for me from tonight.”

Raven stuck his head over Flynn’s shoulder for a moment to look at the message Flynn was re-reading for the third time.

“...He knows you’re not Sunny, right?”

Flynn grimaced. “Polite reminder that I’ve got his sister-in-law with me.” And, oh. _Shit_.

“Wait, you got one o’ them with ya?!”

He pointedly kept his mouth shut.

“Raven...”

“No, Karol. If we got one floatin’ around the camp that he could put inta anyone’s head—“

“Sunny’s _mine_ ,” Flynn bit out. “And for the record, if anything happens to her, Yuri’s _dead_.”

Raven and Karol both looked at him, and he glared over the top of his datapad for a moment before quickly typing a response. “Souls don’t marry, they have _Partners_. Sometimes for a lifetime, sometimes for a hundred lifetimes. The latter kind? If their Partner dies, the second Soul tends to go with them. Sunny is _Scout’s Partner_. Has been since they met on Shining Blue, and the only world Scout’s _ever_ had three consecutive Hosts on before was Shining Blue _because_ Sunny was there. She followed him when the need for an Infiltration Specialist dragged Scout away, and her brothers went after her.” He stopped, sent the message before Raven could realize what he’d done, and looked up from the datapad again.

“You hurt or _kill_ Sunny, Scout’s going to shred Yuri’s nervous system from the inside.” Probably. Maybe. Unlikely.

He was still pretending, at least in front of Raven, that he didn’t know how to Extract Souls, so it was a fair enough warning, in theory, at least.

And thankfully, it did seem to work.

Raven hated Souls, hated it whenever he realized someone was getting friendly with the Souls in their midst, but he didn’t hate _Yuri_.

He put his datapad away and settled in to wait while the patrols were out roaming. Soon. Soon they’d be able to leave, and then hopefully he could put all of this out of his mind.

As well, he hoped that Golden would forward the relevant information to Sodia of what he’d managed to tell the Soul back in Zaphias.

_Brave Vesperia found. Camp in contact with Agate’s. Scout and Fire alive; Fire still hidden._

_Situation slowly unraveling; need help._

_Thanks for covering me._


	14. Respite

They were in the Shaikos Ruins.

It had startled him to find out about their location, but as he sat leaned against a tree in the ruins above ground, he had to wonder why he was surprised. Aspio had kept the location of the ruins a secret for quite some time, and that was _before_ the original city had been destroyed.

“Hey, Flynn?”

He shifted to look up at his dark-haired companion. “Yeah?”

“Scout finally explained Eclipses, and I was thinking... He suggested making Judy an Eclipse, and I think she’s been thinking about it.” He paused there and bit his lip. “If you were offered the same chance, would you take it?”

Flynn had to actually stop and think about that one, because the answer his heart gave wasn’t the one his head had expected.

But when it came right down to it...

“...Yes.” He looked up at his childhood friend, faint pangs of worry in his heart, but Yuri had that smugly amused expression that said ‘yeah, I figured as much.’ Flynn took a deep breath and offered up a small smile. “I’ve spent too much time with the Souls, haven’t I?”

Yuri chuckled, and shifted so he wasn’t laying belly-down on the branch, but rather face-up. It was a fairly wide branch, so Flynn wasn’t too worried about his friend falling, but he still wasn’t totally comfortable with the situation. “I think we both have... Sentinel.”

...Sentinel?

“Heh. Fitting.”

“Scout’s good at names. I don’t think he’s called you ‘Flynn’ since that first night after you woke up,” Yuri said. “I’m not sure how I feel about the implications of ‘Shadow Walker,’ but at the same time...”

“Also fitting,” Flynn noted. “But I thought...”

Yuri was quiet for a long while. Long enough that Flynn started to worry, even, only for the raven-haired man to speak. “I’m not comfortable here. I can’t stomach the thought of Inserting Souls into the survivors, but at the same time... With me trapped here, there’s nothing I can do to stop it from happening. If I joined the Seekers... Well. You understand that one, probably better than I do. But you talked about Sodia doing odd jobs, and... That doesn’t really sound bad. I just... I can’t leave them behind, you know?”

Flynn smiled. “I know.” And then he frowned, because... “...Are you willing to leave Raven behind?”

“After everything that’s happened? I am. But... Karol’s not. And he wouldn’t be willing to leave the rest of the people in the camp, either. Kid’s got a heart a few dozen times too big for his chest,” Yuri pointed out. Then he sat up and looked down at him worriedly. “Why?”

Flynn considered his friend, considered the Soul sharing Yuri’s head, considered Raven.

“...Sodia went undercover when we realized something was weird with you, Scout, Judy, and Fire.”

Realization dawned slowly, painfully, and Flynn wondered how far he’d fallen that he didn’t really understand the almost sickened expression Yuri wore right now. He knew the source of the raven’s discomfort, but he didn’t feel any of that discomfort himself.

Getting Estelle, Rita, and Karol out before the Seekers could come down on their heads would be _nice_ , but Raven was a big enough threat that he was willing to risk them becoming casualties.

 _Mists_ , but he didn’t even sound like one of them in his head anymore.

“You went out on the last supply run with Raven and Karol. Did you manage to send off a message while you were out without Raven noticing?”

Blue eyes rose once again, this time meeting silver. Scout, then.

“Golden was watching for any activity in my action log. He cleared out all of my code usage before I got the chance to, and sent me a message. Raven and Karol got distracted for a few moments and I managed to send one back. The camp Sodia’s in now is one Rita’s been ferrying supplies to, and I told Golden as much,” he replied.

Scout’s eyes drifted away, toward the north. “Brave Vesperia set up almost a dozen camps on their way south. This one’s one of the smallest, but Rita runs supplies and news around to all of them. Still, if Sodia knows you’re in one of the camps Karol set up, that’ll narrow down her list of places to search.” He was silent for a while, before... “It’s been two weeks, so... we’ve got another week, at most, before we’ve got Seekers knocking on the door.”

Flynn hummed. He wasn’t really familiar enough with procedures to do that sort of math. Still... “She’s not trying to get all the camps rounded up.”

Scout shrugged. “I took into account Yuri’s memories of her, so assuming those are accurate, and then noting how much the Occupation’s changed _you_ , and assuming that the undercover mission was _her_ idea, because I can’t imagine you suggesting it... Yeah, no. About a week.”

Flynn tilted his head to the side and made a little bit of a face at Scout, because _how_...

Scout chuckled. “I think you underestimate the lengths she’d go to when she’s on a personal mission, Sentinel.”

He smiled to himself and settled back against the tree. Probably. There’d always been something between Yuri and Sodia that was nowhere near romance, so... Maybe Yuri knew something he didn’t that changed things.

A week, though...

“Should we try to get Rita and Estelle out, at least?” he asked.

Scout dropped to the ground and landed with all the predatory grace that Yuri was... oh, wait, no, that was actually Yuri again. Still...

Charcoal eyes met his blue evenly, a kind of sad smile tugging at Yuri’s lips, but not quite succeeding. “If you can get the girls out, Judy and I can haul Karol out by the back of his shirt if we have to.”

Flynn smiled. “I’ll see what I can do.”


	15. Murder

Sunny’s cryopack was gone.

Sunny’s cryopack was _gone_.

Flynn slung his bag’s strap over his head and took off running, because there was only one person in the entire Mists-damned camp who might have possibly taken her, and there was no telling what Raven might do to her. Already, Flynn’s mind was conjuring up images that were nightmare-worthy, and he hadn’t even found Raven yet.

It had to have been two days ago, when he and Yuri had been up on the surface, relaxing in the shade of a tree and talking about the fact that the Seekers would be finding them soon. That was the only possible time when Raven could have gotten ahold of his bag and figured out the secret pocket. Which meant he’d had her for two days already!

She could be dead!

“Please, please, please Mists don’t let me be too late...” he whispered desperately as he rounded another corner. He pointedly ignored the little voice in his head that said he _was_ too late.

Another corner, and he crashed straight into Karol, who’d been rushing the other direction. He scrambled to get to his feet, and realized Karol was half-panicked, as well. “They found us,” the brunette blurted. “Where’s Yuri?!”

Flynn grimaced.

No Sunny.

No Yuri.

“Where’s _Raven_?” he shot back.

Karol blinked, glanced in the direction he’d come, and then looked up at him again. “East tunnels. There’s a couple side-caverns that we keep empty just in case; he said he’d be down there, but...”

“He stole Sunny’s cryopack, and Yuri’s missing. Pray that they’re not both dead,” he hissed, already turning to run for the tunnels Karol had indicated.

“Flynn, wait, the Seekers—“

“I’m not worried about _them_.” And he was probably going to regret snapping at the teen later, but for right now, his worry about Sunny and Yuri overrode just about everything else.

What the hell was Raven _thinking_?! He’d told him back when they’d made the supply run...

Had Raven not believed him when he’d said Scout would kill Yuri? It _was_ a bit of a long shot, really. Scout knew how much Yuri meant to him, and the two were pretty friendly with each other from what he could tell. There was no reason for Scout to kill Yuri when he knew Flynn understood what it meant to lose a Partner.

He could hear in the background as Souls clashed with Soulless, the very faintest scent of peach reaching his nose and telling him that someone had used the same trick Duke had taught him in the alleyway.

A flash of Raven’s favorite violet coat drew his eyes, but Raven was gone just as quickly around the next bend, and there was a light in this side-cavern here...

A quick glance in was enough for him to determine that he was too late.

A tiny, dull gray form laid in the center of a table, fine white threads limp and lightless. Yuri was tied to a wooden chair, head slumped forward and just as motionless as the dead Soul on the table.

...Except, he wasn’t.

Flynn stepped forward and pressed two fingers to Yuri’s neck, feeling for a pulse.

Unnecessarily, as Yuri’s head rose, silver eyes looking up at him with something like betrayal. Flynn clutched at the strap on his bag. “I didn’t realize he’d taken her.”

Scout looked away again. “...And I can’t yell at you for keeping her with you, because if they’d found her cryopack back in Zaphias, they’d have realized something was wrong, because she’s in the system as being in your head,” he said monotonically.

Flynn dropped into a crouch and started untying the ropes around Yuri’s wrists. “The Seekers found us already.”

“...Really?” Scout stopped and sniffed the air. “Oh. Ugh. Yeah. Good _Mists_ but peaches smell horrible. I don’t know if it’s just Yuri’s nose or what.”

Flynn couldn’t help it. Grim situation or not, he broke into snickers. “It smells perfectly fine to me,” he muttered.

“Pretty good indication that someone’s Sleep-bombed the main cavern, though.” Scout stopped and sniffed again. “...A couple someones, likely. That’s too strong to be just the main cavern...” The raven swayed on his feet after standing, and Flynn only barely caught him. “Ooh... Smart someones.”

Flynn reached into his bag and started rifling around for... aha!

A quick spritz of Awake in each of their faces, and the dizzy sluggishness that came with a too-small dose of Sleep was gone.

“We should get going. I’m not sure I want to be in this room when the Seekers find us,” Flynn murmured. “I am _so_ sorry...”

“Not now.” A glance at charcoal eyes and a much less broken expression said this was Yuri again. “Raven probably took off down the north-eastern escape route. If we take the south-eastern, we can get to Halure with no one the wiser.”

Flynn nodded, putting the Awake back as he turned and left the side cavern, frowning into the messy contents of his bag. He really needed to sort through—

“Flynn!”

He didn’t get the chance to move, Yuri slamming into him just as he spotted the violet coat in his peripheral vision. Raven, again.

“Damn it!”

“Oi, more down here!”

Flynn shifted out from under Yuri, just in time to watch Raven shoot another arrow in his direction.

This time, he managed to dodge on his own, and then Raven was gone, because the Seekers were coming too quickly to risk staying around.

He looked back at Yuri, and immediately wished he hadn’t.

Because the first arrow that had been meant for him... was buried deep in Yuri’s back.

“...Yuri?” He shifted his friend carefully, oh so aware of the arrow, and brushed dark bangs away from a pale face.

Charcoal eyes wouldn’t focus on him, no matter that Yuri was clearly trying.

“No... No, no...”

Two fingers placed against his neck again, searching for a pulse.

One... two... three... four...

...

“No...”

Gone. That weak pulse was gone.

Raven had been aiming at _him_ , trying to get rid of them before they could give the Seekers any other locations. He hadn’t gotten what he’d wanted from Scout. And even though Scout had been willing to let Yuri go, to let them both slip back into the Souls’ fold without a word, there was no chance of that now.

Flynn gathered up his childhood friend and held onto his too-thin, too-cold frame like it was his last lifeline.

“We’ve got two... oh. One Soulless. ...Wait...”

“...You keep going. The archer who fired that arrow shouldn’t get away.”

...Duke?

Flynn dared to open his eyes again and look up, even as Duke knelt next to him. “...What’re you doing here...?”

Duke was silent as he checked Yuri for a pulse, and then he bowed his head. “I’m sorry. I was hoping I wouldn’t be too late.” His hand shifted, fingers running over the back of Yuri’s neck, where Scout was still nestled safely against his spine. “I saw you in Aspio, and sent Golden and Sodia messages. They told me what was going on. I offered to help.” His expression, normally so stoic, turned into something like a grimace. “Flynn... Yuri’s Soul...”

“Scout. His name’s Scout.”

“He will need to be removed. And the Seekers didn’t bring any cryopacks with them.”

There was only one answer that Flynn could reasonably come up with, and it wasn’t even something he’d need to call another Seeker over for, because with Yuri’s death, Scout would have detatched himself from his nervous system.

Yuri was the closest thing Flynn had ever had to a Partner. And now, because of his own idiocy, Scout’s Partner was dead.

He rifled through his messy, messy bag, and managed to find his medkit, holding it out to Duke wordlessly.

Red eyes stared at the medkit for a long few minutes, before they rose to meet Flynn’s blue. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

If it was the only thing he could do for Scout, then it was what he would do. And if Scout wanted to die afterwards... Golden could take him back to the Origin, the way he’d originally planned to take Sunny, if Scout had been the one to die.

What little Awake he’d inhaled earlier wasn’t enough to negate the amount of Sleep Duke sprayed in his face a few moments later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guh. This scene has changed pretty notably with each iteration of this story, with only two things staying the same: Yuri dies, and Flynn gets Scout Inserted.


	16. Brothers

Waking up was an interesting experience, because he wasn’t waking from a position in which one might actually sleep, nor was his waking up gradual.

Rather, it was an odd sort of all-at-once wake up, and as best he could tell, he was currently standing—leaning—against a wall and... talking to Golden?

_‘Huh. About time you woke up.’_

Flynn considered that voice—not Yuri’s voice, but somehow similar—and what he remembered from before.

Yuri, dead.

Duke.

“Scout?”

_‘Yup.’_

“...How long was I out?” he asked.

 _‘Almost a week. Though, to be fair, they kept us both under Sleep for four days. And they found Sunny.’_ Scout was quiet for a while, and Flynn certainly couldn’t blame him _‘They’re trying to figure out why the Soulless were able to Extract her, but not me. Current theory is running to the tune of... well. Yuri and I pulling off what Judith and Fire have.’_

Flynn pulled away a little at the reminder. He didn’t need it, or want it. It hurt bad enough already.

He felt something like a hug, and then there was a memory, and the memory was all he knew.

_Yuri was curled up in the back of his own mind, happy enough to let Scout wander the ruins on his own while he had a bit of an existential crisis._

_“What the hell’s wrong with me...?”_

‘If it makes you feel any better, I’m pretty sure Flynn’s asked that a few times, himself.’

_No, it really didn’t, but... yeah, actually, it did. Flynn was a lot of things, but he’d always done what was right in the past. Sure, this was a weird situation, and had been a weird situation from the start, but..._

_Scout wasn’t so bad. More than a little wacky—he’d learned more about various minerals and the science behind geography than he’d ever wanted to know since the Soul had started opening up to him in an attempt to alleviate their mutual boredom—but not bad._ Fire _wasn’t bad. Hell, by Soul standards, she was a social outcast. She and Judy got on so well it was kinda scary, actually._

_He felt how tense Scout got around most people. Rita, not so much. She could sit and chatter back to him about rocks all day if Raven didn’t interrupt them. Estelle, less so since Flynn had joined them (unwillingly, that traitorous part of his brain reminded him). Karol, definitely not. The kid looked up to him a lot, and even though he hadn’t known what to think about Scout at first, he had a feeling Karol had neatly slotted the both of them into ‘adoptive parent’ roles._

_Raven, though... Scout had always been wary around Raven, and Yuri couldn’t blame him._

He _didn’t trust Raven as far as he could throw him anymore, and considering how many times the poor man had been forced to regain their trust in the past..._

_Still._

_Flynn._

_He_ knew _his best friend’s tells. Knew what the tightness in his shoulders meant when Raven was around. Knew what was going through his head when blue eyes darted from shadowed corner to shadowed corner out in the main cavern. And he’d seen how much Flynn’s eyes had lit up when the blonde had realized that Scout and Fire were both alive and well, and mostly friendly with their Hosts._

_Flynn... was a Soul. Not in the literal, physical sense, maybe. He was still Flynn Scifo, rather than a glowing white aerophobic electrophilic nemotode roughly an inch and a half long settled against the spine of his childhood friend. (Yuri took a moment to blame Scout for teaching him those three long words that described the Souls.)_

_But_ _Flynn was a_ Soul _. At heart, in mind... He was one of them. And he belonged with them, not here. Not somewhere surrounded by people who didn’t understand Souls at all. Seeker, sure. But what had really changed for Flynn since the Occupation, huh? He was still protecting the citizens of Zaphias from the monsters, still going on patrols around the city, still stepping in to help resolve any issues that might crop up..._

 _They were both prisoners here. And maybe Yuri was used to that. He got into trouble too often even before the Souls had come into the picture. But Flynn_ didn’t _._

_“...Scout?”_

‘Yeah?’

_“...I think I’m ready to leave.”_

‘I guess I was right. You two _are_ Partners.’

_“Huh?”_

‘If I’d had the choice, I would have stayed on Shining Blue forever. But when they pulled me away, Sunny followed. Flynn’s found his place...’

_“And I’m ready to follow.” Yuri considered that a little longer. “...You think Sunny’ll mind sharing with Flynn the way we’re sharing?”_

‘She’d be thrilled. It’s hard to get the two of us on the same world, anyway.’ _Scout was quiet for a while, before he spoke up again, so softly that Yuri might have missed it if it hadn’t all been in his head._ ‘Do you want to do the honors?’

 _Do the... Insertion? ...Did he? This was his best friend, his_ Partner _even... and Scout’s Partner. And as long as Flynn was willing, which he probably would be, then... “...After. After we get back to Zaphias.” But for right now, he needed to broach the subject with the blonde. And it wasn’t one he wanted Judy or Fire walking in on, so they’d need to make a trip to the surface._

_Flynn would probably enjoy the sunlight._

The memory let Flynn go gently, but it still hurt, because that was _Yuri’s_ memory, not Scout’s.

 _‘He left as much of himself with me as he could,’_ Scout admitted softly. _‘Do you want to talk to Golden? He’s been going in circles for the last few minutes, dancing around anything involving you. I figure he’ll probably be relieved to have his baby brother still hanging around.’_

Flynn frowned, as much as one could frown when they were a disembodied voice in their own head. “...brother?”

Scout chuckled. _‘Golden tends to adopt Souls on occasion. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one leave whatever world they’re born on, but he does it regardless. You’re stuck with both of us now, anyway.’_

It was an odd feeling. On the one hand, his everything ached simply because Yuri was dead.

On the other hand... He’d missed Golden greatly, and he knew better than to think, for even a moment, that Scout wouldn’t also be tucking him into the same ‘little brother’ space that Golden seemed to have done.

So he mentally braced himself and nudged back against Scout, not entirely sure how to—

It was like sliding on ice, except gravity was really _wonky_ , because he was sliding _up_ instead of down, and suddenly he wasn’t just watching everything from the sidelines.

“—and it’s a little worrying, because unless...” Golden cut off suddenly and _stared_ at him, hard.

Flynn stared back, totally clueless on where to start a conversation when he had _no_ idea what Golden had been talking about.

Blue-green eyes blinked twice, and then Golden took a shaky breath. “Flynn?”

And just like that, he was back home. Still hurting, still lost without Yuri, but he was _home_ again, and for the moment, that was all that mattered.

“Missed you too, Golden.”


	17. Interlude

It was as though, after his return from the Shaikos Ruins, everything had changed.

And yet, when one looked at his day-to-day schedule, nothing had changed.

He went on patrols and fought monsters, and came home to Golden or Duke or a Healer who would keep him company of an evening before letting him retire to bed.

His fellows among the Seekers _checked_ him now, fully aware that Sentinel and Scout were two different Souls, trapped in a single Host together because separating them would make both suicidal with the grief of their Partners’ loss.

It was usually Flynn, Sentinel, who moved about on a day-to-day basis, but when the reminders got to be too much, Scout would take over, and Flynn would settle in the back of his own head and fight, hard, to keep from simply disappearing.

That was the biggest thing that had changed, he mused.

More often than not, he was called by the name Scout had given him, and the more he answered to it, the less he had to spend entire days buried in his own mind, pulling on Yuri’s memories to help him stay level.

The Healers were sympathetic, but not overbearing. They worried for him and Scout, but they left them to their own devices, for the most part.

He missed Sodia, though. Their messages back and forth weren’t enough, though they definitely helped.

_Sentinel, huh? Fits. Kinda makes me wish for a Soul name, myself, but I get the sinking feeling anything Scout might come up with would be in relation to you, and I’d like to earn a name for myself, thanks._

Scout, unsurprisingly, had busted up laughing. _‘To be fair,_ Yuri _came up with Sentinel’s Shadow, but she’s right. I can’t think of anything that’s purely_ her _, and not something related to you.’_

The comment about Yuri had hurt, but he’d been able to keep going.

Sodia’s next message had made him worry and wonder in turn.

 _Estelle and Rita are here. Sounds like Judith took Raven and Karol to the Gypsum camp. That’s the closest one to Zaphias; you should be careful. I know you said none of them trusted you enough to give you locations of other camps, but if Raven finds out you’re still alive and_ sharing _with Scout, he might come after you._

_Estelle’s been asking me a lot about what it was like living among the Souls. I dunno, Flynn. I think you might’ve converted her while you were at the Shaikos Ruins. The three of us (me, Estelle, and Rita) made the last supply run to Heliord, in broad daylight. No hiding, nothing. Just a trip to the store, like we were passing through on a routine trip to Dahngrest_ _. Estelle was pretty comfortable with the whole thing, and even Rita relaxed once she saw Estelle having fun._

He’d asked her how she thought they might respond to Fire, and if having Fire, Judith, and Ba’ul bring them to Zaphias might be a good idea.

She hadn’t responded to that particular line of questioning when she sent in her next message. This time, though, the fact that she included coordinates told him enough.

Time for a raid.


	18. Calling

“Please tell me you are _not_ going to be in the middle of this.”

He glanced over his shoulder at Duke, and then turned back around and went back to double-checking the information that was coming in on his datapad. He chose to remain silent, knowing that would be answer enough for the silver-haired man.

“...Why?”

“Because I have a Calling to answer, and because more people are going to get hurt if I _don’t_ ,” he answered bluntly. This was one of the more dangerous camps, and if they didn’t do something about it soon, it was going to turn into a major threat for Sodia, not to mention the rest of the Soulless camp she was currently a part of.

“Flynn...”

He paused, hands tightening on the datapad he was holding.

How many weeks... No.

How many _months_ had it been since he’d been called by his birth name?

...Not since Scout and Golden had talked, mere days after he’d woken up post-Insertion, and Golden had transitioned into the new name.

His friends among the Seekers had been told from the start, as soon as the Healers had cleared him and Scout to return to their shared Calling, and that had been a simple transition as well.

Just like he’d called Sodia ‘Agate’ for the entirety of their time ‘undercover.’ The switch back to calling her ‘Sodia’ had only thrown him off for a moment, but...

A change in names was common enough among Souls. Either the name no longer fit, or was being ‘borrowed’ from the Host, or... oh, there were a multitude of reasons.

But in this case...

“I think... Flynn died in the Shaikos Ruins.”

“You’re not Scout.”

He grimaced and looked up at the man who’d become a fairly good friend since the mess with the Soul patrol that had been caught by the Soulless. “No, but Yuri was the closest thing I had to a Partner. Scout’s holding on for my sake. And... if Sentinel is all that’s left, so be it. I have a Calling, I’m going to answer it.”

Duke watched him, something in those red eyes keeping him from looking away, until finally the silver-haired man sighed. “Where do you need me... Sentinel?”

He took another look over the information he’d been double-checking, remembered a night in Zaphias when they were the only two against a team of over a half-dozen Soulless, and made up his mind. “With me. I’m leading a team through one of the side-entrances Sodia managed to map out. We’re a few Healers short, and _Scout_ isn’t comfortable bringing one of the apprentice Healers with us. You’re no Healer, but you’ve got more training than a lot of these kids do, and if worse comes to worst, you can defend yourself.”

“Let me guess; you’re taking the most dangerous route in to spare the other Souls.”

Sentinel snorted. “Actually, no. I’ve left that route to Sapphire. He’s an obnoxious pain in everyone’s ass, but his team is terrifyingly good when it comes right down to it, and they know the risks. They’ve got the southern exit covered, and the majority of the Seekers will be going in from the east. That leaves the north path for us. It’s the smallest, and most likely to end up in us getting bottlenecked if we can’t move fast enough, but it winds around enough that we can turn that to our advantage if we have to,” he replied, before glancing over a message and quickly typing a response.

Typing hadn’t come naturally, not until Scout had spent _hours_ teaching him to do it properly.

Clarification sent, he put the datapad away and glanced up at Duke again. “If you don’t have one already, you should go get a medpack from Healer Snow on the Mountains. He’s in charge of keeping the Healers coordinated for this mess,” he added.

Duke watched him for a few moments before he left, and Scout hummed from the back of his mind.

_‘A lot like Golden, that one. Too stubborn to walk away, not certain enough to speak up.’_

That almost made him laugh.

Duke? Uncertain?

But he saw it, understood where Scout was coming from. Duke was certain in himself, definitely, and still had little to no faith in humanity. But when it came to the people the man reluctantly called ‘friends,’ he never knew where was safe to step. Before, Duke had been at odds with various people over differing ideals.

And then there was _this_ situation.

He’d have to have a talk with the man when they got back to Zaphias.


	19. Break

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not a good sort of break, either. :(
> 
> Stopping here for tonight (...this morning? It's 3:44am...), but hopefully I'll be back in a day or two with a couple more chapters.

The Souls tended not to actually bury their dead Hosts. Mostly because the Souls themselves were still alive, and the Hosts... the Hosts were just that. Bodies, left behind when claimed by old age or illness or a battle the Soul hadn’t been able to avoid.

But graves still wound up dug, once in a while, which explained the stones sitting under a tree a little ways away from Zaphias.

He hadn’t been out to Yuri’s grave in months, not since... not since he’d returned to his Seeker Calling.

And now there was a second grave, laid beside the first because Duke deserved to be buried _somewhere_ rather than cremated and forgotten alongside thousands of Hosts, and he _ached_ inside again, all the wounds he’d thought he’d patched up torn wide open once more.

Two small, unassuming bouquets of flowers sat on the graves, and he mused quietly over the grass already reclaiming the overturned earth of Duke’s grave. Only a month, and it was so hard to tell that this was a fresh burial site...

“Sentinel?”

He looked over his shoulder, somehow unsurprised to find Laughing Tree giving him a worried look.

A glance at his datapad showed that he wasn’t _quite_ late. Yet.

“You know, you’re welcome to take a few days off,” the Seeker Coordinator started.

“I’m fine,” he insisted. And maybe one day he’d believe himself when he gave that lie. Until then... “The outer perimeter patrol will at least get me out of my quarters for a few days, right? Staying cooped up there definitely isn’t going to help.” And until Sodia returned...

He shoved that train of thought aside, because thinking about Sodia meant worrying about missed check-ins, and he had a patrol...

Laughing Tree was quiet, brown eyes boring into him as though he could see right through Sentinel’s shield of apathy. Which he probably could.

“I’m not the only one in the station starting to worry about you,” the Soul said. “Please. Just... Take a few days to unwind. Maybe talk to a Mind Mender? You’ve been through a lot, and you’ve got a lot of us worried about you.”

He looked away from the Senior Seeker, eyes catching again on Yuri’s headstone, and staying there as the wounds just... _bled_.

 _‘The Menders can’t do anything about a lost Partner,’_ Scout whispered in the back of his mind, barely there, but indignant nonetheless at Laughing Tree’s suggestion.

“I was doing better,” Sentinel whispered. Whether it was in response to Scout, or Laughing Tree, he didn’t know. He wasn’t sure it mattered.

“And as valiant as your efforts to drown yourself in your work are, I can’t in good conscience send you out there when you’re this distracted,” Laughing Tree responded anyway.

Which was as close as the Soul was going to get to _forcing_ him off the rotation.

That was the one thing that he’d always found odd, as Flynn. Seekers, picking up shifts as they pleased, because every effort was appreciated, and because they never knew when circumstances would mean they needed to _drop_ a shift.

But if it meant he could keep himself going by focusing on his work, then so be it. That was exactly what he had been doing.

“I’m going to send a message to Sings a Silly Song, let him know not to wait for you. And I don’t want to get a report with your name on it when he comes back, you understand?”

For the first time since the Occupation had begun, Sentinel could actually hear LeBlanc under Laughing Tree’s much gentler tones, the steel that had gotten the lieutenant through Alexei’s madness and the blastia mess no longer set aside, but held, wielded against him as Laughing Tree ordered him to back down.

“Alright,” he conceded, reluctant, but aware that he _was_ pushing his limits. Or was this exhaustion a by-product of something else? He couldn’t tell anymore, and it didn’t matter much anyway.

He was tired. Bone-deep, in a way that hinted at more than just physical exhaustion.

“I’ll see you next week, yeah?” he added a moment later, finally tearing his eyes away from Yuri’s grave.

Laughing Tree’s nod was jerky. Not quite what he was hoping for, he guessed, but it looked like the other Seeker would accept that.

“You take care of yourself, Sentinel.” The Soul was gone a few moments later, and he twisted, turning and sitting in front of the two stones like he could resurrect them both if he just _stared_ long enough.

He’d lost them both because of the fighting between Souls and Soulless. Yuri to _Raven_ , specifically, when he’d tried to save him. And that... that hurt so much, because no matter how many times Golden, or even Scout, told him otherwise...

He couldn’t help but feel like it was his fault. If he’d just been paying attention, if he’d seen Raven’s coat, if he’d been able to dodge that arrow on his own—

Scout’s presence felt kind of like a hug. A mental hug, the Soul as broken and hurt as he was, but a hug nonetheless, the two sat in silence as they mourned, and fought to hold on.

It was a bit of a surprise, perhaps, that they fell asleep there, sitting next to Yuri’s and Duke’s graves, but at the same time, it wasn’t. It really wasn’t.

They hadn’t been sleeping well. Nightmares, memories, all tangled up and conspiring to keep them awake.

They weren’t always human in their nightmares, either. Scout’s nightmares sometimes took him back to other worlds, other Hosts. Shining Blue, where a poison kept seeping into the Crystals, _killing_ them, killing the Minnows in turn when they couldn’t get warm because the heat the Crystals gave off was _gone_. The White Steppe, where a hunting party went wrong, their chosen non-sapient prey proving too much for their pack to take down. Hyperion, where black raedyn killed an entire hollow before the Imps got it all dug up.

Every single time, one of those they lost was Sunny, or a Soul that could have only been Yuri, or _both_.

A similar nightmare woke them up now, still outside Zaphias, but no longer alone.

Ioder had never been a fighter. Golden wasn’t much of a fighter, either.

So seeing their brother sitting nearby, a bow abandoned to his left and his quiver still slung across his back, threw the both of them off.

Sentinel recovered first, practicality winning out over shock as he sat up. “Hey.”

Golden looked up from his datapad, what looked like a game loaded up on the screen. “Hey, yourself.” He tilted his head to the side. “You know, you’re lucky the monsters don’t usually come this close to Zaphias. I’m not sure how long you were out here before I found you.”

He flinched, and forced himself to his feet. “Not our brightest idea, I’ll admit,” he hedged. Mists, but he was so _tired_.

Golden closed out of the game and put his datapad away, also standing up and lifting his bow with a surprising familiarity.

(Or perhaps not so surprising. Most nobles had been taught to use one weapon or another, for their own safety. Ioder hadn’t been an exception, and Golden wasn’t _stupid_. He would have kept in practice.)

“Shall we?” Golden asked, gesturing toward the city.

He nodded, already turning and heading that way, one concerned brother at his side and one equally-exhausted brother hovering in the back of his mind.

“So, I think Minnow’s due to be arriving soon,” Golden said suddenly.

It took a moment for that to compute.

 _‘...Really? Heh. Been a while since...’_ Scout cut off rather suddenly, but Sentinel didn’t need him to continue to know where he’d been going with that statement.

_Been a while since the triplets were together._

And just like that, Scout was deathly silent in the back of his head, curled up and _away_ and not letting him in.

Sentinel sighed. “Thanks, I guess.”

Golden looked up at him sadly. “...Sorry. I was hoping that would be good news, not... Oh, never mind. Are you doing anything this evening?”

A couple months ago, he probably would’ve let Golden drag him out for whatever it was the Guide wanted to do. But right now...

“...I think I’m going to go to bed. Personal safety aside, that was probably the first time I got any amount of sleep since...” And he needed to not think about that, thank you.

“Sentinel? Scout?”

It was Golden’s voice that got through to them. Both of them, lost in their various nightmares as they were, reacted to the sheer _pain_ in their brother’s tone, and blue eyes met blue-green, noting how close Golden was to breaking down, himself.

“...I know it doesn’t make the pain go away. But... please, _please_... talk to Minnow once he’s Inserted. He’s not a Mender, but all Healers get at least a little of that training, so if anyone can help, it’ll be him. I just... I don’t want to see you spiraling like this.”

_‘...Fine.’_

Sentinel nodded, unwilling to voice any of what was currently running through his head.

Golden was silent the rest of the way to the castle, and broke off once he’d seen Sentinel to his door, seemingly content in the knowledge that he really did just want to go back to sleep.

And he did.

Until the nightmares drove him and Scout out of their bed again.

Logically, he knew they couldn’t keep going on like this.

That didn’t make it any easier to stop. The nightmares refused to take pity on them for even one night, it seemed, and when they both dreaded closing their eyes for that reason alone...

His eyes caught on his bag, and the medkit sticking out of it, as an idea suddenly filtered into his head. The Healers told them not to do it every year, every time they came by the Seeker station for the annual first-aid refresher course. Gave them all the warnings and whatnot, and he’d never stepped out of line with them before, but...

 _‘...A couple nights won’t hurt,’_ Scout murmured.

It’d be fine, he told himself as he reached for the medpack and dug out his can of Sleep.

_Mists, but he wished he could believe his own lies._


	20. Addiction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Update schedule? What update schedule? Welcome to me trying to post a story.)
> 
> Warning: Discussion of addiction in this chapter.

It lasted longer than either of them had expected. Or _wanted_ it to last, even.

Really, Sentinel mused as he sat on his bed and rolled the can of Sleep between his hands, they should’ve seen this coming.

 _Had_ seen it coming, actually. Sometime around Week 2.

It was Week 14.

He’d taken to writing everything down. The fluctuating dosages, the exact time and day each dose was taken, and most damningly, how long it took for the withdrawal symptoms to start kicking in whenever they tried to put it away and just _stop_.

They weren’t doing too well at that, actually. It’d been pretty spaced out to start. A dose here, two or three days, and then another dose because really, the nightmares needed to get a clue.

It had taken until Week 3 to start managing things a little better.

The journal Sentinel kept meticulous dosage notes in was also getting filled up with every nightmare that was keeping him and Scout up at night, and, between the two of them, a detailed analysis of exactly which parts were the worst.

When Scout had gotten them started on it, he’d been worried it would just make things worse. But, as usual, Scout was right. It helped, knowing what demons he was facing in his own head. A lot like knowing your enemy on a battlefield helped.

But it had taken until Week 7 for them to start feeling comfortable enough with their demons to just _stop_ with the Sleep.

Except, by then it was too late, and every warning the Healers gave them about Sleep being _addictive_ had Scout and Sentinel both resigned to one hell of a lecture, just as soon as Minnow found out about it.

... _If_ Minnow found out about it.

They’d been doing pretty well cutting back, weaning themselves off the drug, until the disappearance of almost a hundred cryopacks, _including Minnow’s_ , had set off the nightmares again.

Regression sucked.

And now they had an issue.

They were just about out of Sleep. And when they were still looking at a seriously _rough_ withdrawal period still... Well.

“Talk about a rock and a hard place,” Sentinel muttered. They’d _tried_ , at least. They’d _tried_ to back off, to get the drug out of their system before it had come to this.

 _‘The Medics_ will _notice if a single can of Sleep disappears, and we can’t really make a whole crate of medical supplies vanish, either. Not without help we don’t have,’_ Scout said. _‘Which means, unless we can get ahold of Judy and Fire, and have them bring in a can from one of the Soulless camps, we’re going to have to face the music.’_

“We’ll have to face the music, anyway. Fire knows enough about Soul medicines, she’ll have it figured out,” he replied. Out loud, because no one was around to hear it, and because hearing himself actually _say the words_ stopped him from trying to deny it.

And then there was a thought, a thought that _ached_ in its entirety, because it was a reminder that hurt and he was nothing short of ashamed of himself when he considered the answer.

_What would Yuri think if he could see me now?_

_‘Sentinel?’_

“I’m okay,” he breathed. Deep breath in, hold, breathe out. In, hold, out.

Oh, Mists, Yuri was going to kill him if there was an afterlife.

That, more than anything, steeled his resolve, and helped him get to his feet and pick up the datapad at his bedside table. A rapidly-typed message, a short but enthusiastic (judging by the exclamation mark; Golden really had been worrying over them a lot even the last few months) response, and then he settled in on the couch with his datapad, their journal, and the empty can of Sleep.

This was not going to be an easy conversation, and they were probably going to have to have it more than once, but...

 _‘Golden deserves to know, too, and he can help us when we deal with the Healers,’_ Scout piped up. _‘Though_ he’s _going to rip us both a new one, too.’_

“We’re trying,” Sentinel muttered. They just... couldn’t keep doing it on their own anymore.

 _‘The journal will prove that, and help our case greatly. Really, I should be thanking you for thinking of that. I hadn’t considered it when we first started,’_ Scout said.

Which made him a bit uncomfortable, less because of the whole dosage notes thing, and more because... _“Some of the stuff we wrote down about the nightmares was pretty personal.”_

 _‘Exactly why we were waiting for Minnow’s Insertion. But with him missing, we’re kind of out of options,’_ Scout replied. _‘I’m all for keeping this private and inside the family, but... we’ve hit a wall.’_

And neither of them was _that_ proud, that they wouldn’t ask for help when they knew they _needed_ it.

There was a soft knock at the door, and Sentinel took a deep breath. “It’s open.”

Golden peeked in, almost wary but not quite, and then stepped in with a smile. “Good morning!”

A gentle pressure, and he let Scout slip forward gladly. They were both doing better, no matter how much of a wicked mess their addiction was getting them into, and it showed in the way the Soul returned Golden’s easy, hopeful smile with a small smile of his own. “Morning, little brother.”

Watching Golden’s eyes widen, shocked and _thrilled_ by the fact that Scout had taken the reins for the first time since Sentinel had woken up (to Golden’s knowledge, at least), was definitely worth the reaming out they were going to get from the Healers over their self-medication.

“You sound better!” the Guide said, all but skipping to his usual chair and sitting down with a sort of energy Sentinel was pretty sure they’d tried (and failed, miserably) to leech right out of him.

“We’re both _feeling_ better,” Scout agreed, still smiling faintly, amused by their brother’s antics.

“That’s good! You had a lot of people worried.”

And at that, Scout grimaced faintly. “Yeah... About that...”

“Oh Mists.” Golden deflated rather visibly, and Sentinel couldn’t help but _laugh_ , because messy situation or not, he’d missed Golden’s occasional bouts of childishness. And no matter how insistently the Soul had explained it away...

_“I can’t act my age all the time. It gets boring after a while, and I so rarely get Inserted into children, so my options tend to run along the lines of be bored, or act like a child once in a while even if I’m physically an adult.”_

...it was still a decided source of entertainment. As long as it wasn’t pointed his way. Golden could get _very_ destructive when he got like that.

“What did you two do?” Golden deadpanned.

Scout didn’t answer verbally, rather, he pulled the empty can of Sleep out from where it’d been wedged between his hip and the back of the couch and tossed it in Golden’s general direction, counting on the blonde’s fairly impressive reflexes to keep it from hitting the wall behind him.

And judging from the way Golden caught it and then just... _stilled_... He got the point.

A swallow, and then blue-green eyes rose. “...You know better than that.”

Scout winced. “We both did. _Do_. And we kinda had a feeling this would happen. But... It _helped_. Neither of us was in any condition to be trying to sort our minds out when we were getting _maybe_ two hours of sleep a night, if that. And we almost had ourselves weaned off of it before those cryopacks went missing.”

Golden swallowed again, and looked down at the empty can. “I guess.”

There was silence for a moment, before Scout slipped the journal out from under his leg and held it out. A pause, and then their brother took it, gingerly, as though it was going to fall apart if he were too rough with it.

A few minutes as he flipped through the pages, eyes catching, and then he flipped further in, eyes skimming over the sections where Sentinel and Scout had poured out their hearts trying to put the nightmares to rest.

And then he sighed, and closed the journal, and slumped back in his chair. “Minnow would be impressed. Once he was done yelling.”

Scout chuckled, and that, if anything, was proof that they’d come a long way from the complete _messes_ they’d been a few months ago. “Sentinel started it. I didn’t actually think about it until we realized, Week 2, that we were going to end up addicted.”

Golden sighed. “The Healers are still gonna yell. And something like this doesn’t do a good job of being kept quiet. Especially not with you two in the Seekers.”

“I know. Minnow would’ve been willing to let us go under the radar, probably, but that’s Minnow,” Scout replied. “I don’t think the Healers will pull us off the active duty roster, though. There’s a pretty strong trend of our mental state getting _worse_ when we’ve got too much time to think on things that’s showing right there.”

“Which just means every Seeker in Zaphias is going to know.”

“Yeah, well, we’re kind of out of options now. The Healers’ll notice if we swipe a can, and without any way to contact Judy and Fire, we can’t get one out of a crate the Soulless have stolen.” Scout shifted a little and opened up a game on the datapad in his lap, idly swiping boxes around as he entertained himself. “And we _are_ trying to get off of it, so at this point, there’s nothing left to hide.”

There was silence for a bit, as Scout played his game—and Sentinel tried to figure out exactly _what_ he was doing, because it confused him greatly—and Golden continued to stare at the closed journal in his hands.

And then... “Sunny would be proud of you.”

Scout’s hands stilled, and Sentinel ‘reached’ out to ‘hug’ him, because that sentiment was so similar to what he’d felt earlier, to the line of thought that had given him the strength to invite Golden over.

And if it hurt both of them to think about Yuri and Sunny like this, then it was a _good_ ache. Because it felt like stretching a scar, and knowing it was healed even if it would never be the same again.

They would persevere. They _would_.


	21. Patrol

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Admittedly, one of my favorite chapters in the whole story. Not because I don't like Raven, but because I adore Minnow for putting up with all of Scout's BS.

_“Well, this went sideways real fast.”_

Scout’s snickering in the back of his head was less amused, and more sadistic.

Honestly, it should have scared him.

He didn’t care anymore.

Or, well, he didn’t care _right now_. Later, he probably would, but when his primary focus at the moment was _cutting Raven down_ , literally or figuratively... well. Priorities.

That Raven was also potentially going to get _Estelle_ killed because of whatever mission the idiot had decided to run in Zaphias was just the icing on the cake.

Raven twisted under his sword, and Sentinel cursed the man’s proclivity for acrobatics as he leaned on Scout’s combat experience, and specifically what he’d learned from _Yuri_ , to slip around the counterattack Raven used.

Blue eyes went wide, obviously recognizing the move, and Sentinel took that opening to slip in closer, intending to knock the man out.

His hand was only _just_ blocked by Raven’s bow, even as blue eyes went impossibly wider.

“...Flynn?”

“Flynn died with Yuri,” he hissed, disengaging and retreating a bit before Raven remembered his daggers.

“Sentinel!”

He shifted to catch the shield he’d dropped earlier—like a Mists-damned _amateur_ , but Sleep withdrawal symptoms were a bitch on a good day, which this wasn’t—and turned just in time to block Raven’s arrow.

And it didn’t take the archer long to put two and two together, either. Everyone in the Shaikos Ruins had known that the Soul inhabiting Yuri’s body was named _Scout_ , after all, and even though logic said Scout should have been Inserted into Flynn, for him to be running around clearly in control of himself and answering to _Sentinel_...

“And here I thought you couldn’t fall any further,” Raven bit out as he made another attempt to knock the menace out. “Guess I was wrong.”

“Coming from you? That’s rich.” And maybe there was a bit more acid in his tone than there should be, but he didn’t care right now. “I didn’t put an arrow in Yuri’s back.”

A flinch, an opening.

Raven couldn’t move fast enough to block him this time, and the pommel of his sword met Raven’s temple.

He took a moment to look around, and immediately had to roll out of the way of a rogue Tidal Wave... Or, well. It was Rita, clearly trying to get Estelle out and giving no fucks about Raven, so probably not so rogue.

And it had worked, too. Broken the almost-circle that had been keeping Estelle and Raven from just _running_ , and given the pinkette her window of opportunity to escape.

He sheathed his sword and made to sling his shield on his back, only to almost drop it _again_ because his muscles picked right then for a spasm, and _fuck_ but he was going to be so happy to be done with this once it was over.

“Let them go,” he called, when it looked like a few of his patrol were about to give chase to the girls. They eyed him a bit warily, and he sighed and gestured to Raven. “He’s unconscious for now, but unless someone ignored Laughing Tree’s orders regarding medpacks, he’s not going to stay that way long. Hauling _one_ Soulless back is going to be trouble enough already.”

He got a barrage of winces for that, because everyone knew _why_ they had no Sleep with them, and no matter how supportive they usually were, times like these proved why it was a bad idea.

“Great... Don’t suppose anyone has a spare cryopack on them?” the Healer on their team, Starflower, asked. She clearly wasn’t expecting a response in the positive, and Sentinel considered the issue as he shifted Raven, removing as many weapons as he could find.

“What if...” a new Seeker by the name of Flylight started, only to stop and bite his lip.

Sentinel looked up at him. “What if...” he prompted gently. Even if the kid had a bad idea, he deserved to be heard.

Flylight glanced around at some of the others in their patrol. Starflower, Chases the Drakes, Sings a Silly Song, Bluebeam, Andre. Then looked at him again. “What about Scout?”

Oh.

 _Oh_.

 _‘...Huh. Keep track of that one, Sentinel,’_ Scout mused, just as pleasantly surprised as he was. _‘Not a bad idea, even in the long-term.’_ And then there was silence, as the two of them _stared_ at what they’d just found in Raven’s knapsack. _‘Or we could go that route, but—‘_

It was the way Scout just _cut off_ when Sentinel turned the canister, looking for the designation. BMH-108823...

Oh. _Shit_.

“Minnow...” he whispered, shocked and relieved and just...

What were the odds?

_‘Or we can do that. Really, it’s up to you. At this point, I wouldn’t mind either way.’_

Sentinel bit his lip and considered it for a few moments.

“Or, you know. _He_ can be carrying a cryopack.” Starflower sighed behind them. “What even is our luck?”

“It gets worse, Starflower, but I can’t say that’s not accurate,” he agreed. “Minnow’s going to bitch at us for this one, but I’d really rather not try to get him all the way back to Zaphias, and since we’ve got the option, I’d rather not make Scout Skip.”

He looked up at the fidgeting Flylight and smiled. “Not a bad idea, though.”

The kid—physically still only a teen, but older than Karol was even now, and pretty young by Soul standards to boot—seemed to relax substantially after he said that.

Starflower knelt at Raven’s shoulders, and Sentinel set the cryopack to start thawing as she prepped the man for Insertion.

He couldn’t bring himself to be sickened by this, no matter that he’d once called Raven a friend. The man had killed Yuri, intentionally or not, and there wasn’t a cell in his body that was willing to forgive him for that.

And as Starflower worked, clinically precise and silent as the Seekers around them formed a protective barrier to keep any curious monsters away, he had to _wonder_.

_“Scout finally explained Eclipses, and I was thinking... He suggested making Judy an Eclipse, and I think she’s been thinking about it... If you were offered the same chance, would you take it?”_

From the day he’d woken up after the Shaikos Ruins to the night he’d started dosing himself with Sleep four and a half months ago, his answer would have been along the lines of ‘hell no.’

Two months into his drugging himself, he would have still said no, but it would have been gentler, no longer so insistent.

Now? Now he really had to think on it.

Minnow had been their best hope for getting any of them into the system, and that hope had been lost when his cryopack had been one of the hundred-and-something that had been stolen. Except now he was _here_. Alive and well and being Inserted. So it was suddenly an option again.

 _‘...You’re actually, seriously still considering it,’_ Scout murmured, surprised and exasperated and amused and _proud_ in a way that made his heart ache. _‘After everything... Heh. You really are our little brother. Stubborn to the core.’_

Sentinel couldn’t help the smile, even as he carefully scooped Minnow out of his cryopack and handed him off to Starflower, the Soul quickly, easily integrating into his new Host, attachments stretching and spreading and tying Minnow into Raven’s nervous system.

The cryopack was tucked back into the bag, and Starflower finished with the Insertion cut before packing her medkit away again and standing up. “He should wake fairly quickly. Do we want to stay here until then, or try to keep moving?”

Sentinel shook his head, not having to think about that one. “Stay put for now. Like you said, he should wake soon enough.”

She nodded to him, and then stepped away, moving to talk to Chases the Drakes quietly.

It really didn’t take long before he had company sitting vigil over Raven’s still form, and Flylight looked like he wanted to ask questions he knew he probably shouldn’t be asking.

Still... “It’s better to get an answer than a reprimand when you don’t know what you’re doing,” he said softly.

Flylight glanced up at him. “Did you get a reprimand for the Sleep?”

Yeah, he’d had a feeling that was where the kid was headed.

“Flylight!”

Sentinel shook his head, silently cutting Sings a Silly Song off before he could go on a spiel about respecting his fellow Seekers’ personal lives. “It’s fine, Adecor. I’ve kind of been expecting it eventually.”

The Soul groaned anyway, even as Flylight grimaced. “I’m sorry. That came out harsher than I’d meant anyway...”

Sentinel shrugged, not quite as nonchalant as he wanted to be, but definitely less bothered than Flylight seemed to expect. “It’s an issue, I won’t deny that. But... regardless of how badly outside of regulations it was, it _helped_ with the other issues I was fighting. So, I don’t actually regret it, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Flylight made a face. “I just... I don’t know why someone would do that in the first place.”

He offered up a sad, heavy smile that definitely wasn’t the usual sort he gave his patrol unit. “And I hope you never come to truly understand it, yourself. Losing a Forever Partner isn’t something that you can bounce back from in a short period of time, and Scout and I _both_ lost ours within an hour of each other.”

“Is that why you and Scout are working together, even though you’re technically...” Flylight cut himself off, clearly not wanting to say ‘Soulless.’

“Yeah. He’d been Inserted into my Partner, see, and in the midst of everything happening, Yuri asked us to take care of each other.” He tilted his head to the side and considered the twitching of Raven’s fingers. “I’m willing to talk more later, if you want. I think we’re about to get moving again.”

Flylight glanced at Raven, then nodded and stood up again, wandering back to the loose ring around them.

Not a full minute later, blue eyes were blinking open, sunlight making silver rings glow around his pupils as Minnow looked around himself.

“Designation?” Sentinel asked, all but on auto-pilot as the Healer stared at him.

“BMH-108823,” Minnow replied just as automatically, still staring, still apparently out of it.

“Minnow?” he prompted quietly, worriedly.

There was a pause, a deep breath, another glance around, and then... “So how many times am I going to have to make a complaint about field Insertions before it actually goes in my file?”

Scout burst out laughing in the back of his head, and Sentinel really couldn’t help himself either. Because that was... That was Minnow. Definitely, and without any doubts at all.

The Healer sat up slowly, stretching and doing the same sorts of motor skills tests that all Seekers got put through on a yearly basis. Made sense, at least, and meant he’d be on his feet pretty quickly. Still...

“...Raven?” he asked quietly, and with a tad more venom still staining his voice than he’d intended.

Minnow paused, looking upset, even as he gave Sentinel another considering look. “Section 9.”

...Which made _no_ sense to him at all.

 _‘It wouldn’t. It’s a rare Soul who can actually put Section 9 into application. Minnow can, Sunny can, Silver_ can’t _, and Golden and I can, and I’ve had to in the past, and probably should have used it against Yuri, but... for better or worse, I didn’t,’_ Scout rambled quietly. _‘But... Well. Brace yourself. I won’t actually hurt you, but explaining it in words is hard.’_

He settled himself a little better, and wondered—

—and found out.

Glowing white threads, to his mind’s eye, wrapping around everything he was, threatening to _shred_ him if he so much as _twitched_ —

And then they were gone, and Sentinel understood why Minnow and Scout were both so uncomfortable.

“...Oh.”

Minnow looked up at him, worried suddenly, even as Sentinel swallowed, and carefully tucked that memory away in a corner of his mind where he would hopefully never have to think about it again. He stood up slowly, balance not quite perfect at the moment, and held out a hand to the Healer to help him to his feet.

“Will you be willing to help fight the monsters?” he asked once Minnow was on his feet.

A glance at the bow, quiver, and daggers Sentinel had laid just to the side, a short, quick nod, and then Minnow was lifting the weapons and slinging them into place like it was habit, routine.

 _“So, memories stick even when you do... that?”_ he guessed.

_‘Yeah. I’ll be honest. What Yuri did to me in those last few moments was... kind of a similar thing? It worked, got him dug in deep the way he wanted, but still...’_

Deep breath. Shove it out of his mind.

“Huh. You didn’t make sure he was fully under?” Minnow said suddenly.

Sentinel winced.

_‘Oh boy. Yeah, this is gonna be a fun trip back to Zaphias.’_

They were both _so_ dead.


	22. Minnow

“This has got to be the single most _fucked-up_ situation I have ever had the misfortune to get involved in,” Minnow groaned, settled into the armchair opposite Golden. Sentinel was tucked into his usual corner of the couch, with Silver sitting at the other end and looking almost equally as exasperated.

“What was your first clue? The Sleep addiction or the Host who’s as caught up in that mess as our brother-in-law?”

And the fact that Silver was up-to-date on everything despite having stayed in Dahngrest all this time really didn’t surprise anyone. The man had his ways.

And Minnow had one hell of a glare, for a Soul. “The drug issue has absolutely _nothing_ to do with it. I’ve seen Seekers go _way_ worse for far less than those two have been through.” He stopped and ran a hand through his hair, scowled, and tightened his ponytail. “The rest of it, though, yeah. It’s all a wicked mess. That said, what I’m most worried about at the moment is Sodia.” Minnow pointed at Sentinel. “You said she went in undercover, Rita told Raven she was clean, Raven _saw_ her Insertion scar but figured it was a bogey much like Flynn’s used to be, and Estelle said she found an empty cryopack in Rita’s bag, _before_ the Cryopack Heist.”

Scout had gone very, _very_ quiet in the back of Sentinel’s head, and he had a feeling there was a good reason for it as Minnow continued.

“Now. Reports prior to Sodia’s radio silence said that she, Estelle, and Rita were making pretty regular trips into Soul-occupied cities, partly for supplies, but also partly just for the sake of it. Sodia _had Agate with her_ , just like Flynn never left Sunny laying around.” Minnow paused and grimaced. “If they moved to the camp I _think_ they did, it’s likely any datapads they had with them have been destroyed. Nana’s paranoid like that. That would explain, at least in part, why we’ve gotten nothing but radio silence from Sodia since her last camp change. But the question remains... Where did Rita get the _empty_ cryopack? Raven dropped Sunny’s in a river, and we don’t leave those things just sitting around.”

Which meant... “You think Agate might have been Inserted or killed.”

“I’m thinking Insertion,” Minnow confirmed. “Rita and Estelle saw what happened at the Shaikos Ruins, and there’s no doubt Sodia’s fully aware of events. And if Sodia is as much one of us as you are, Sentinel...”

“She’d rather share headspace with a Soul she knows little to nothing about than risk letting him be murdered,” he murmured.

“Rita would have been a better fit, if they actually bothered. Agate’s a Researcher, and an old friend of Sunny’s. Agate and Scout were on the same team for an expedition, and Sunny and Agate got to talking at one point while Scout was distracted,” Silver piped up. Scout’s almost-silent grunt confirmed that, and Sentinel mused over that particular information.

“And without any way to update the database, they can’t let us know,” he said. “But there’s not much we can do about it at the moment, is there? Unless you can pin down locations.”

Minnow made a face. “Working on it. It takes a few weeks for everything to settle, and Raven was doing everything in his power to keep that information away from us. But once I’ve gotten everything sorted out, yeah. I’ll have locations.”

That was... good.

Really, at this point, Sentinel was just so tired of all the fighting.

"So, what are we going to do about the whole Sodia issue?" Golden asked. "If Minnow's right and Agate's been Inserted."

Scout managed something of a full-body cringe, even though it was all mental, and Sentinel frowned and nudged him.

_"What's wrong?"_

_'...Also assuming Agate didn't pull Section 9 on her.'_

Sentinel rather abruptly shoved that thought out of his head. He didn't need that sort of nightmare, thank you very much.

"There's nothing we _can_ do until she can report in," Minnow said, looking rather like he wished he hadn't. "And until then... Life as normal, I guess. But at least it's something to consider when she does show up."

Silver shifted, on arm propped on the back of the couch, and his head resting in his hand. "So, back into the Healing Center with you?"

"Do I actually have to answer that?" Minnow deadpanned. "And on the subject of Callings, what the hell have you been doing this time?"

Which... was an interesting question. Sentinel hadn't had the chance to sit down and talk with Silver before this, so he was curious, himself.

The man shrugged, and adjusted his coat, smoothing out a couple wrinkles. "Bit of this, bit of that. It'll be a few years yet before the Grand Theater re-opens, after the Soulless blew the place up last year, and until then, I'm just... Sitting, writing, keeping up with the actors I've been working with, writing some more..."

"So, not quite your usual brand of Storytelling, then," Minnow mused. "Sunny would've been so amused by the fact that you've ended up almost into one of her fields."

Silver was quiet for a few moments, eyes darting to look at Sentinel for a second before locking on the coffee table again. "She was... trying to get me into writing plays and whatnot a few lives back. Said something about being in the same field for once, instead of spread to the figurative four winds in Callings. I laughed it off at the time, but..."

Sentinel shifted a bit, curling up a bit tighter on his end of the couch, and wondering if shoving Scout a little further down would be helping, or hurting.

Silver looked at him and away again. "I was watching for her designation in the system, and saw when it went up. Both before and after Golden cleaned up Sodia's tracks."

...Oh.

"So I figured, keep watching it... and if, once the Occupation started... well. I kinda figured it wasn't actually Sunny pretty quickly."

Minnow looked like he was biting his lip. "I'm surprised you didn't report that."

Silver was staring at Golden, and the blonde didn't look at all repentant, sitting up a bit straighter and crossing his arms. "Scout was MIA, in a confirmed dangerous Host. No contact. I thought he was dead, and if Flynn was willing to safeguard Sunny so she wouldn't have to suffer knowing she'd lost Scout, then I was going to help." Blunt, strongly-voiced, and...

Mists, how long had it been since he'd heard his own name?

...Duke. Right before...

Sentinel twisted and all but buried his face in the back of the couch.

"...I'm sorry."

"It's not--" he started, only to stop, take a shaky breath, and shake his head. "The last person to call me 'Flynn' was Duke, right before..." He couldn't say it. Couldn't think it, couldn't say it... oh Mists he was still so broken...

 _'We both are,_ ' Scout said softly. Sentinel leaned on that, leaned on the presence in his mind, felt Scout's own agony over Sunny's death at the Shaikos Ruins. Those wounds were fresh, and aching, and they were trying damnit...

"I have to ask," Minnow started. "Who came up with 'Sentinel?'"

"Scout," he managed to reply. "Scout did."

Silence, and he couldn't bring himself to turn and look at them when the wounds from Yuri and Duke were still raw, when he could feel the nightmares trying to creep up on him again.

 _'We can pull through,'_ Scout insisted.

 _"We can. We have,"_ he agreed.

"...Guess I shouldn't be surprised," Minnow said, amused despite the atmosphere. There was a moment, and then a question that surprised Sentinel greatly. "Has he ever brought up Eclipses?"

"No," Silver cut in. It sounded rather like a reprimand, and held a surprising amount of acid for the normally-placid Soul.

"They've come up before. Yuri was a Host Eclipse," Golden admitted.

" _No_." Silver again, in that tone of voice that said he was surprised he'd had to say it twice.

Sentinel let Scout push forward, feeling that mischievous edge that he'd learned to fear—and avoid, at all costs—over the almost two years since he'd encountered Scout and Yuri in a back alley right here in Zaphias.

"It was definitely on the table for discussion when we were at the Shaikos Ruins. Mostly in regards to Judith, if I'm being honest, but..." Scout shrugged, leaving that open-ended in a way that definitely implied that he'd talked to Sentinel about it. "And we've discussed it a couple times since returning to Zaphias, as well," he added, gesturing to himself to indicate who he meant by 'we.'

Silver's expression was hilarious, actually. " _No_ , damn it."

It was good thing Scout was in control. His own snickering would have broken it.

"That would... that would actually be great, I think," Golden said finally, a small smile on his face. It was clear he'd never actually thought about it previously, but now that the thought was there... "I mean, if you're willing." A slight pause, a flicker in his expression, and then he lifted his hand, casual enough that Silver wouldn't be able to tell that he was fighting not to laugh, having caught the switch a little too late.

"What part of 'no' do you people not understand?!" Silver burst out.

At which point, Minnow clearly couldn't hold it any longer, and Sentinel was no longer the only one laughing. Golden started up a moment later, and Scout, unable to resist, chuckled a bit, himself.

Silver looked like he was about to have a conniption, actually.

Sentinel gently shoved forward, his laughter at least mostly under control, and wasn't too surprised when Scout slipped backward again. "For the record, it's not technically illegal."

Silver gave him a pretty impressive stink-eye. "...Technically."

He smiled, pleasant and unbothered and very much amused by this whole thing. "Technically."

"He's right," Minnow butted in. "There's no specific rule against it in any of the Codes. Not the general, not the Seekers', and not the Healers'."

"But the sterile Threadlings…"

Minnow looked at him, and Sentinel grinned back. "They're supposed to be euthanized as soon as possible," Minnow started.

"If one or two get... 'misplaced' into Hosts and then Extracted, well..."

"They're not sterile anymore, now are they?" Minnow finished.

 _'You two are going to get along_ swimmingly _.'_

Sentinel burst out laughing, because really... "That is the worst pun I have ever heard!"

 _'It wasn't... oh.'_ Scout was quiet for a moment, before he snorted. ' _I probably could have picked a better word.'_

Well. At least 'can't stop laughing' was a better state of being than 'about to relapse again'.


	23. Eclipse

There was something intimately familiar about the current scene in Sentinel's living room.

Golden was seated in his chair, fingers tapping away on his datapad as he exchanged messages with someone in Aurnion who was having difficulty adjusting to their Calling.

Minnow was curled into an impressively small ball on the far end of the couch, Raven's favored purple coat traded out for a blue Healer coat, his own datapad in hand and scrolling through it slowly as he read whatever it was he entertained himself with when he wasn't answering his Callings. Sentinel had found out about his secondary Artist Calling about a week after he'd been Inserted, when Minnow had set up an easel next to the window and painted a pretty impressive portrait of Yuri and Repede. (That canvas was hanging in Sentinel's bedroom, now, though he wondered what had become of Repede. He'd been at the Shaikos Ruins, but then... Sentinel didn't know.)

Then there was him, feet pressed up against Minnow's hip (and helping to hold him in place), mostly stretched out on the couch, datapad in hand as he skimmed through the reports coming in on the raids that were taking place all across the world.

There weren't any Soulless camps left close enough to Zaphias to have dragged him out into the field, not when the Healers were still watching him for regression. They'd finally cleared him to carry Sleep again, because he was a Seeker and he needed to have the drug in his medpack, but they were wary.

Most of them.

Minnow would always just give him that sad, knowing smile whenever the subject came up.

So since he wasn't cleared to leave Zaphias, he was having to watch from afar as the Seekers took down camp after camp, hitting them all at the same time in an attempt to stop the escaping Soulless from simply merging into another camp.

It was... exactly what he and Sodia had been trying to stop, but Sodia had gone radio-silent for months, and Minnow had a list of locations, and... Sentinel just couldn't bring himself to care.

 _"When did I lose myself so completely that this... this doesn't even bother me anymore?"_ he wondered, knowing, in that passive, objective sort of way he always seemed to nowadays, that he should have felt ill over this. He should have been terrified for the Soulless, should have been sick at the thought of all of them being lost under Souls...

But he wasn't. He was just... apathetic.

For the most part.

Karol was dead. They'd found his body at the bottom of a cliff, broken well beyond repair and already stiff in death, and Sentinel had been asked to identify him because they couldn't find anyone else in Zaphias who might have been able to do so at the time.

Judith and Ba'ul had seemingly vanished, Fire with them. Sure, Ba'ul could fly, and the Souls knew there were gaps in their surveillance coverage, but to disappear like that was surprising, and worrying.

Rita and Estelle had been seen here and there, Estelle's pink hair making her a pretty distinctive target when the Seekers were after her. They'd done a pretty good job at not killing the Souls pursuing them, actually, and simply... drifted. If it hadn't been for Estelle being on the Seekers' list of Soulless to catch, they probably could have slipped into any one of the cities and just... blended in. They probably wanted to, given the last few reports he'd found on them.

And Sodia… If she was still alive, there was still no word.

It hurt, a bit, to realize that his friends, his family, were either dead or dying. Those that hadn't been Souls to start, that is.

Another report. A camp near Dahngrest, notable escaped Soulless...

Estelle's name made him smile a little bit, though it was a bitter expression. She'd slipped out of this camp, too, but from the looks of it...

Digging didn't find him anything. Rita was unaccounted for, it looked like. Well, there was still information coming in. He'd look again in the morning.

"Oh for Mists' sake."

Sentinel blinked twice, and then looked up at Golden, who was outright scowling at his datapad.

"Someone being particularly obtuse?" Minnow guessed without looking up.

"No. I've been getting messages for the last couple weeks that are nothing but gibberish, and for the life of me, I can _not_ figure out who the sender is," the blonde grumbled. A couple swipes, a tap, and then he put the datapad in his bag and got to his feet. "It's getting late. I should return to my own quarters," he added.

Sentinel offered a smile. "See you later, then?"

Golden grinned back, easy and honest in a way that Sentinel never quite was anymore. He'd gotten close, before the Shaikos Ruins, but...

 _'We're a little too broken now for that sort of optimistic cheer,'_ Scout mumbled, half-asleep already and only awake because Sentinel was still awake.

Yeah. That.

He was gone a moment later, leaving Sentinel to his datapad and reports and the tired Soul in the back of his head.

“I was starting to wonder if he’d ever leave.”

Ominous.

He looked up at Minnow as the Soul now inhabiting Raven’s body put his datapad aside.

“...Minnow?”

The man twisted, dislodging Sentinel’s feet as he turned to face him fully.

If he didn’t know any better, he’d wonder if maybe it was actually Raven sitting across from him, the Soul was so very serious all of a sudden.

“Scout’s poor word choices and Silver’s stubborn insistence on changing the subject cut us off a couple weeks ago,” Minnow started. “We try to avoid letting word get around, but there _are_ procedures in place to... fuzz the details... if a Healer deliberately creates an Eclipse.”

Something clenched in his chest. Fear, or excitement? He wasn’t sure.

“So I’m going to ask you very plainly. Knowing that I _can_ do this, do you _want_ to go through with it?”

He couldn’t speak.

_‘Breathe, Sentinel.’_

That would probably help.

One shaky breath, and a second. A third. And then he gave his answer, voice surprisingly steady despite everything.

“Yes.”

Minnow’s expression, if anything, solidified further, a solid mask of either stone or ice. “Do you understand _all_ of the implications?”

“I do.”

The slight twitch of Minnow’s eyebrow said the Healer didn’t believe him.

“You’re not going to wake up Human if you leave Terca Lumereis.”

“You’ve read my journal. You know we’re rarely Human in our nightmares. Did you think I was just an outside observer for those?” he replied, voice quiet but _sharp_ , his own ice turned against the frozen countenance before him. “I’ve flown on wings that wouldn’t have held me up if the gravity and magnetic fields on Hyperion were even a fraction less chaotic, in a body with too many limbs for sense and massive ears. I’ve hunted on six legs, chased prey with eyes that didn’t see colors and a tail tipped with a blade-like claw that wouldn’t look out of place on a scythe. I’ve seen colors in shades I didn’t think were _possible_ , watched a hundred bodies glittering in a _thousand_ different hues as an entire school of Minnows danced around a Crystal Queen.”

Something flickered in Minnow’s eyes at that, a memory no doubt.

He’d been there, too, after all.

Sentinel took a deep breath, and let it out. “Am I _ready_ for that? ...Not really. But when has the world ever taken consideration for whether or not I’m ready for something?”

Minnow was quiet for a moment, and then he finally cracked a small, reluctant smile. “You’ll be better off than a lot of young Souls,” he said finally. “Most of us take three or four different species of Hosts before we actually start to get used to waking up in brand-new bodies that aren’t anything like we’ve had before.” And then the humor was gone. “Which is a good lead-in for the next question. The older you get, the longer you remain among us, and _especially_ if you’re world-hopping, the more often you’re going to get pulled in for Infiltrations.”

“And that hasn’t stopped me from doing my job, in case you haven’t noticed,” he replied.

“Duke.”

He fought not to flinch. Not because Minnow was right—he was wrong—but because that one name tore open wounds that were best left alone.

Still... “He was wandering around Occupied cities freely well before he ran into me in that alley,” he pointed out. “I still have the notification that I needed to keep my mouth shut about him on my datapad.” Mostly because he couldn’t bother to clean things out, but that was beside the point.

Minnow tilted his head to the side. “And on a world where the Infiltration’s success depends on the first Souls Inserted to Insert as many of our brethren as possible?”

That. That was the one thing that he’d still been getting hung up on, because so many of these people were innocents caught in the middle, all but _killed_ by the Souls being Inserted within them, and that knowledge didn’t sit well with him. But even as the decades, centuries, _millennia_ passed, he wouldn’t have the power to change it. And there was one thing that hurt, above all else, and kept him steady in his decision.

“So be it. If I can do _anything_ to help mitigate the damage when the Soulless inevitably fight back, then I _will_.” He stopped and swallowed, one hand fisted in his hair—growing long, he really needed to cut it—and the other clutching his knees to chest. “We’ve lost too many innocent people... on both sides.”

Minnow was silent, as was Scout, and Sentinel wondered for a moment if maybe he’d said the wrong thing.

And then Minnow shifted, no longer in an almost-threatening pose as he leaned against the couch arm across from him. “I didn’t read too much, in your journal, about the actual nightmares... How many species have you been? Imp, Panther, Minnow, those three I know because you just told me. What others?”

Sentinel swallowed. “In the _nightmares_? Mostly those three, or Human. A Spider, once. We were the King of... which one? I know it wasn’t the Golden Mists, that was Golden.”

Scout grimaced. _‘The Mirror Mists. He won’t understand the significance... let me.’_

Sentinel deliberately closed his eyes and slid backwards, and Scout opened his eyes.

“Do you remember, my second life on Shining Blue, when we were talking about the Origin, and I was trying to tell a story-map?” Scout started. Minnow nodded, though he looked a bit startled by how easily they’d switched places. “The Golden Mists weren’t isolated. Ridges kept them _just_ separate from the Silver Mists and the Frozen Mists and the Sunset Mists. But, on the other side of the Sunset Mists, there was... a pretty big expanse of... nothing. No Mists.” Scout swallowed. “Except for two. The Blood Mists, which are pretty much poison, and the Mirror Mists, where the true _Origins_ were born.”

“The Origins didn’t usually make it, right?”

“Because they’d leave the Mirror Mists in massive flocks, all trying to escape to other Mists before they could die in the emptiness between Mists, and a lot were lost to the Blood Mists, but _most_ died on the plateaus,” Scout confirmed. “And in that particular nightmare, that was the Mist we were trying to protect, to keep the Souls confined within, and then there was this massive flood, thousands of Souls all trying to leave at once, and scattering because they couldn’t keep ahold of each other outside the Mists. We lost half to the plateau. About a third made it, with us shoving them along. Almost all of the rest, we shoved back into the Mirror Mists.”

Scout stopped there, and looked away, and Sentinel pressed forward gently, wanting nothing else than to help alleviate that ache.

Minnow’s voice was soft as he spoke up. “Almost all?”

Scout started shaking his head, and Sentinel nudged him. A moment, a blink, and then he turned to face the Healer. “We lost two to the Blood Mists. And no matter that we shouldn’t have had any means of identifying each individual Soul like that...”

“Yuri and Sunny,” Minnow realized.

Sentinel took a deep breath, and forced the memory of the nightmare aside, digging back to where this conversation had started. “We were Dragons once, too. I don’t... I can’t call that one a nightmare,” he said. “That was... It was me, and Scout, and Yuri and Sunny, all in the air and dancing around each other and _alive_ , and it wasn’t... it wasn’t a nightmare, but it hurt anyway when we woke up, because we’d remembered _them_ in forms they would never bear.”

Dark brows lowered over blue eyes as Minnow frowned. “I don’t... think I’m familiar with Dragons.”

Sentinel offered him a weak smile. “If I can pull it off... I’d like a chance to spend a life as a Dragon. I can see why Scout loved them.”

Minnow smiled back, almost as sad, but with a light in his eyes that couldn’t be faked. “See if Scout can show you what it’s like to be a free-floating Soul. If I pull a Threadling from one of the non-Infiltration Parents, you’ll probably have to stay in an Incubation Pod for about a century before you’ll have enough attachments to be Inserted into your first actual Host.”

...Oh.

“...Thank you.”

Minnow shrugged. “I’ll stick around for a couple lives, at least.” He tilted his head to the side. “Any idea _when_ you want to do this?”

_“Scout?”_

_‘That’s up to you. I’m... I dunno. I’m not sure if I’m staying here another life, or moving on, or going back to the Origin. I haven’t made up my mind yet,’_ the Soul admitted.

Sentinel considered that, and decided. “As close to the end of my natural life as we can manage. So Scout doesn’t have to Skip.”

Minnow looked more amused than anything else. “Alright then.” He turned and lifted his datapad, and then got to his feet. “See you tomorrow evening?”

He smiled back. “My door’s always open.”


	24. Estelle

He was going over some datawork regarding the newbies on his squad when the knocking started.

Which was a tad odd.

 _“Golden stopped knocking before Sodia left to go undercover,”_ he mused.

_‘And Minnow’s stopped knocking since the Eclipse discussion. So who...?’_

There was a moment of silence as he got to his feet, Scout so very curious and all but leaning against his mental self as they headed for the door.

Then there was another knock, shorter, more hesitant.

... _Very_ odd.

Sentinel opened the door already smiling, amused by their visitor, and only barely kept from losing that smile entirely when he realized exactly who the woman under the dripping white rain-cloak was.

The pink hair rather gave her away, even before she lowered her hood. “Flynn?”

He swallowed, and took a step back, gesturing for her to enter. The words just weren’t coming, because here was Estelle, as though nothing had changed in the _years_ since the Souls had started to take over their world...

“Estelle?”

She was pulling off her dripping cloak and hanging it next to the fire, where it would dry quickly, and Sentinel had to admit that she wouldn’t have looked out of place on the streets of Zaphias. Not in her current clothing. It was no wonder she’d made it all the way up here.

“I’m sorry,” Estelle started. “I just... The Seekers always came after us when we tried to slip into one of the cities, and then the attacks on the Camps, and Rita was trying to get Sodia out, and I haven’t seen either of them since we got separated, and...” She stopped and turned to face him, lost and scared and missing her best friend so dearly that he could see it in every line of her face. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.”

_‘She does realize...’_

If they’d been standing right next to each other, he would have pinched Scout. As it was, the gentle mental slap did a good job of shutting the Soul up.

“Scout and I are both registered in the Seeker force,” he said finally.

Estelle bit her lip. “I know... Sentinel. We... Rita got back into the database, looking for you, and for... Well. Sodia, technically. She saw the notes.”

He returned to the couch, and curled back into a ball against the arm. “Then you know...”

“That you’re supposed to... turn me in? Bring me in? Whatever terminology you want to use for it?” Estelle sat rather primly on the other end of the couch. Habits were hard to break, he supposed.

He watched her for a few minutes, and then picked up his datapad again, because he needed to get these reports done.

“Flynn...?”

He took a deep breath, and looked up. “I haven’t gone by that name for almost two years.”

Estelle smiled weakly, but her heart wasn’t in it. “Sentinel, then.”

“Yeah.”

“Well... Sentinel?”

He tilted his head to the side, silently asking her to continue.

“Can... will _you_ do it?”

His automatic response would have been ‘do _what_?!’ Except, in that very same thought, he realized the answer.

He took a deep breath. “Normally, with circumstances as they are, I’d have to hand you off to one of the Healers,” he admitted. “But... I think Minnow would be willing to help me fuzz the details. So... I _can_.” He rested his head in his hand, elbow propped on the back of the couch. “If you’re sure.”

Estelle closed her eyes, head bowed as she fought, visibly, to keep from crying. “I can’t keep running. And... If I go out there, and try to meld with the crowds... the other Seekers _will_ catch me and bring me in.” She looked up again, watery eyes more blue than their normal green, and Sentinel forced himself not to look away. “I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place... Sentinel. So, yes. I want it to be you.”

 _‘...I really wish we still had Sunny,’_ Scout murmured. _‘You wanna skim the database? See if you can find a good fit for her?’_

 _“Yeah. And...”_ He sent a message down to the kitchens, and then looked up at Estelle again. “It’ll take me a day or two to deal with everything.”

She looked at the floor, clearly unsure what to say.

“Are you alright with staying here in the meantime?” he continued.

She looked up, surprise in her expression, and nodded. “Yes. That’s fine.”

Sentinel nodded, and signed off on the third recruit’s paperwork, and closed out of it to send a message to Minnow and Golden in case they came by tonight.

Then he got into the database, looking for Souls that were waiting for Insertion right here in Zaphias, wondering what it would be like to look at Estelle and know that she was gone.

He’d thought he’d finally come to terms with that, but...

 _‘It’s different, when it’s someone you know could adapt,’_ Scout said softly.

Yeah. It was.


	25. Sunny

Sodia was alive.

Sodia was _here_.

For the first time in years, there was a part of him that was aching, _longing_ to hear his name, his birth name, because that was the name that an injured Sodia would use, because she was tired and wounded and—

_Good Mists she was alive!_

He all but slid through the doors into the Medical Center, eyes darting around for—there!

“Minnow!”

Blue eyes met his, wide and bright and...

Shocked.

He stopped in front of the Healer, only for the Soul to shake his head and wave him past, into the room with the number Minnow had given him...

Sodia. Looking too small and too thin, her orange hair ragged and shorter than he remembered it being. Violet eyes locked onto him immediately, but he saw—they were wrong. Too light, too _soft_. None of his battle-sister’s hard-edged glare that she’d never gotten rid of.

And then she spoke, a crooning language that he understood only because of months spent dreaming of giant ‘trees’ and Imps and dancing through a low-gravity atmosphere.

_~Do you remember the tides? The push and the pull and the light on gold and violet scales...~_

...and Sentinel _slipped_ , shoved aside by Scout with a suddenness that was _new_ and frightening.

“...Sunny?”

Sodia’s grin was weak, and not her own. “There was an Exodus. And I brought Agate in because he was hurt, and the Healers were rushing...”

The hope that had Scout moving forward _burned_. “It was a labeling error...?”

The grin faltered, still a smile, but forced, and so sorrowful. “It took me a couple months to realize... that if I was supposed to be dead... then... that meant Agate...”

Scout sat on the edge of her bed and held onto her hand. “You’re alive.”

And, _oh_. Oh Mists...

“Sodia?”

There was a pause, and then violet eyes sharpened. “Flynn... Sentinel still there?”

Oh Mists...

Scout all but shoved him forward, and he knew this time Sodia _saw_ the switch. “There you are. Good... I was worried you’d gone and quit on me.”

He shook his head. “No. No, I...” He stopped, and took a deep breath. “You remember what we were talking about before you left? Eclipses?”

He got a snort for that. “Sunny and Rita actually spent two hours discussing that. I take it... Minnow’s gonna fuzz you in?”

“As close to the end of my natural life as we can,” he admitted.

Sodia’s smile looked rather like Sunny’s had, now. “...I wish...” She stopped, and shook her head. “Guess it doesn’t matter.”

Sentinel tightened his grip on her arm for a moment. “You wish?”

Violet eyes stared unseeing at the ceiling for a while, before she looked at him. “I wish I could see it. Or go with you. Either would be fine by me, but...” She stopped and looked away again, holding back the tears with an amazing resilience.

_‘...Minnow.’_

Sentinel shifted, looking over his shoulder. Then he got up, making a ‘wait’ gesture when Sodia gave him a confused look, and poked his head outside the door. “Minnow?”

The Soul looked up from his datapad. “Yeah?”

He let Scout slide up again, let the Soul pull the Healer into the room.

“There was a Soul who became a Mother a few days ago, wasn’t there?”

Minnow frowned at him, and then looked at the ginger-haired woman in the bed. Then he turned again to Scout.

A moment, and then... “Sunny?”

“Do it, little brother. Please.”

Minnow was gone a moment later, and Sentinel given control again.

He returned to the bed and sat down again, lacing his fingers in Sodia’s. “You sure about this, Sodia?”

Sunny shifted back, and Sodia grinned. Weakly, but it was still a reassuring expression. “Yeah. Yeah. I’m sure.” Her expression became something bittersweet. “...Someone’s got to watch your back, if your Partner can’t.”

Yuri. Yuri was _gone_ , and Sunny was—

Right here.

Oh Mists.

Minnow returned before he could think of a response to that, and the door was closed behind him.

“Do you want to do this conscious?” the Healer asked, moving around to the other side of the bed with an odd little orb in hand.

“Yes. Please. I don’t...” Sodia took a deep breath, and grimaced. “I don’t have much longer.”

“I know.”

“Cryopack?” Scout asked, just barely pushing past Sentinel and then retreating just as quickly.

“I’ve got one for Sunny, but I’ll be moving Sodia right into the Incubation tank once she’s been Extracted again,” Minnow replied, holding up the crystalline orb and the tiny—absolutely _tiny_ —Soul inside.

Threadling.

Sunny.

 _‘Estelle?’_ Scout asked, seeing where Sentinel’s thoughts had splintered off to.

 _“Yeah. Yeah, if we can. I think... I think she knows, too. So...”_ He stopped, and then just watched on in silence as Minnow gave Sodia a square of No Pain and helped her shift onto her side.

He could see the swaths of bandages, and he knew, even if she hadn’t said anything, that she wasn’t going to make it.

Though... “I didn’t realize you could Extract a Soul when the Host was conscious.”

Minnow grimaced. “It’s... not suggested. And if things weren’t... well. Normally I wouldn’t have offered. But Sunny and Sodia have been sharing for a while, so they should be alright.” A pause as he finished with the incision, and then the bright glow of a healthy Soul lit the sheets beneath Sodia’s shoulders.

A moment later, and Sunny had been Extracted, and placed inside the cryopack. Which... “Don’t take that,” he whispered. “Estelle...”

Minnow gave him a knowing look, and placed the cryopack on the table next to him. The little orb was picked up next, and twisted so it split along its middle.

The Threadling floated into place, small and so fragile-looking.

And it was only because he was looking for it that he saw the way Sodia’s violet eyes lightened, as though there were a Soul in charge, except...

Except those violet cats-eyes were still sharp, still like daggers even as she looked up at him, even as her breaths became shallower.

“...Flynn?”

“Yeah?”

Sodia smiled, weak, but triumphant in a way. “...See you in the next life.”

A familiar farewell to Scout. And one that he knew would become familiar to him, as well.

“I’ll see you again in the next life,” he agreed.

Sodia’s eyes slid closed a few moments later, and they stayed there, Sentinel still holding her hand, Minnow on the other side of the bed, until her breaths simply... stopped.

Another moment, and some careful prodding from Minnow, and the tiny Threadling tumbled out of the still-open incision at the back of Sodia’s neck. It may have just been his imagination, but he would have sworn that it was glowing brighter now.

Minnow caught it in one half of the little orb, and quickly twisted the top on. Blue eyes rose from the Threadling he held to Sentinel. “Do you want me to arrange for her body to be buried with Yuri and Duke?”

Yuri.

“No. No, she’s...” He couldn’t get the words out, couldn’t say _anything_ because he was choking on the lump in his throat—

And then Scout had pushed forward, and Sentinel curled up in the back of his own mind.

Almost two years, he’d kept going, with Scout as more of a passenger than anything else. He... he needed a rest.

“This Host has been vacated of _both_ Souls it contained,” Scout said simply. Minnow seemed to understand.

“Are you going to get Sunny Inserted?”

“Yeah. Estelle asked Sentinel to do it, but... I think he needs some time, and we’re pretty sure she _knew_ about Sunny, so...” A shrug. Sentinel twisted in on himself, ignoring what Scout saw, and trying to ignore what he felt. “She took the time to talk to me at the Shaikos Ruins, so I’m going to talk to her now.”

“Good luck. I need to get this little one into the Incubation tank.”

And then there were no voices to keep him awake, and Sentinel sank into that darkness gratefully.

Because everything _ached_ , and he needed a little time.


	26. Flynn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, sorry! COVID-19 shelter-in-place means I've been in close contact with my mother long enough that my sanity is fraying at the edges.
> 
> I'm posting Chapters 25-28 today, and saving the rest for, uh... I don't want to say tomorrow, because knowing me and my characters and the lack of cooperation I get from them, it won't be... But hopefully it will be tomorrow. I need to find a little bit of time so I can expand what was originally Chapter 29 into two full, separate scenes. Which means I need to put Re:A Dying Light down and actually work on something else. (Like Doff Thy Name. There's another story I meant to finish writing and posting by March 31st and failed miserably to do.)

Waking up was as sudden as it ever was when he’d been sleeping and Scout had been... doing things.

_‘Flynn?!’_

And... Wait a second.

_“Of all the people I thought I’d have to correct...”_

_‘Shut up and hug Estelle,’_ Scout grumbled.

And just like that, he was standing in his apartment, staring at a woman in a blue dress because he was just _that_ disoriented by everything.

Green eyes were slowly growing wide, and then their color darkened subtly, _suddenly_. “...F... Sentinel?”

And _then_ he noticed her hair.

Her _long_ hair.

Oh Mists.

“How long...” he started, before Estelle was all but tackling him and he was too busy holding her up to finish that question.

“Almost three years.”

Oh _Mists_.

“What the hell...?”

Three years. How... He’d just...

...faded.

Like Host minds were _supposed_ to do after a while.

 _Oh_.

“I am so sorry...” he whispered, no other words coming to him. He hadn’t meant... he’d just...

 _‘I didn’t realize until a few days later,’_ Scout said softly. _‘I can curl up like that without worrying, because that’s just the nature of Souls. You... can’t. Yet.’_

“I’m sorry.”

Mists. Three years. How...

It was a miracle that he’d woken back up at all.

 _‘Maybe not so much,’_ Scout replied to the thought that... damn, he had _no_ walls at the moment. _‘We’ve shared enough memories... You’re... very comfortable with the realities of being a Soul. Like, say... falling asleep in one body and waking up in one that is totally different. This wasn’t quite that, but... you had every intention of waking up, and so you did.’_ A pause, and what felt like a hug, except mental, this time. _‘After worrying the shit out of all of us.’_

“Sorry.”

“You need to stop apologizing,” Estelle said plainly. Oh, wait, no. That was Sunny. “Never again, you hear me? This round was bad enough dealing with Starlette being sad. I don’t want to do that again.”

...Starlette?

Sentinel couldn’t help the weak chuckle, because really... “I see her name didn’t change much.”

Sunny’s grin was just that—sunny and bright. “Not really.”

“So...” Sentinel paused in the motion of running his hand through his hair, and frowned. “...I need a Mists-damned haircut.”

And from the way Sunny and Scout both burst out laughing, they found that hilarious.

Glad _someone_ did.

Estelle and Sunny still had the longer hair, but... damn.

“Were you trying to match Yuri for length, Scout?” he muttered. And... huh. That was weird. That statement didn’t tear open gaping wounds. It still hurt, and there was still a hole, but... “And what the heck did you _do_...?”

If he’d had his own body, he imagined Scout would be half-draped over his shoulders right now, in rather the same lazy manner Yuri liked to use just to annoy him.

 _‘I did my best to use Yuri’s memories as a net. I figured you wouldn’t have faded_ completely _when I did realize you were too silent, so I was hoping that sooner or later, he’d be able to pull you back in.’_

And so Yuri had. Because the more he dug through his memories...

“Sentinel?” Estelle, or Sunny, he wasn’t sure which, reached up to brush a tear from his cheek.

He smiled, hurt and so, _so_ badly scarred that he could never forget, but...

“Flynn,” he whispered. Estelle—it was _definitely_ the former princess—blinked in confusion. “I thought I’d lost that part of myself with Yuri,” he tried to explain. “And Yuri dug himself into Scout’s consciousness as far as he could... That’s what Scout used to pull me back...”

Estelle’s smile was sad, but he could see it in her eyes, that she understood what he was trying to say.

What was left of Yuri had pulled him back from that edge, and now...

It wasn’t enough to fill in the hole his Partner had left behind. But it was _enough_.

“I’m glad... Flynn.”


	27. Judith

“...Judith?”

The purple-haired Krityan turned around, surprise and confusion quickly replaced by a grin. “Flynn! New haircut, I see.”

He snorted, and fell into step next to the woman. Whose eyes, he noticed, still seemed to have that silvery sheen... “I think Scout was going for Yuri’s hairstyle. Which looked great on Yuri, but...”

“The ponytail didn’t look bad.”

“Mm. But I’d meant to get a haircut _before_ I went under, so...” He shrugged, and then tilted his head to the side. “Then... Fire?”

He got an even wider grin for that. “Walk with me for a bit?”

Uh... “Sure. I’m just off patrol, at least.”

The Krityan—because he had no clue if it was Fire or Judith at this point—was silent as she led him to a pretty familiar part of the Lower Quarter, and he looked around idly, wondering what had happened to Hanks, or at least the Soul who’d been Inserted.

Then he heard children laughing, and spotted the flashes of pale blue that didn’t quite belong.

“Fire!”

The tiny Krityan in the midst of the playing children paused, twisting to look for the woman who’d called her name, and he realized what was going on as soon as the little girl’s eyes lit up upon seeing him.

“Hi, Scout!”

He chuckled. “Sentinel,” he called back.

Fire made a face, and then seemed to realize that she’d been corrected.

If anything, she lit up even more, and took off running after shouting a quick ‘see you later’ to the other kids she’d been playing with.

Sentinel grinned as Fire joined them, Judith already walking off in another direction, and it didn’t bother him any at all when the little girl at his side reached up and took one of his hands in her own.

That was the joy of being Inserted into a new Host, he’d learned. His first childhood had been rough, fleeting, but his future childhoods _wouldn’t_ be. And Fire was nothing if not cheerful.

“Guess this explains why I couldn’t find you two a few years ago,” he mused.

Fire giggled. “Prolly!” And then she was much more serious suddenly. “Scout was really worried about you.”

He winced when Judith glanced back at him as well, also concerned. “I fell asleep in the back of my own head,” he said simply. And, from the glances exchanged between the two Krityans, they understood what that meant. Good. It meant he didn’t have to think about it too much.

 _‘We’ve got you. It won’t happen again,’_ Scout reassured him. Not for the first time, either, but it didn’t make him any more comfortable with the realization that he’d almost faded.

“So, fair warning,” Judith suddenly piped up in a far-too-cheerful tone for the words she’d just spoken. And she was grinning when she turned to look at him, too. Oh boy... “Fire’s Host is my biological child... and we’re living with her father.”

He couldn’t help it, he was confused. “...Does he know about...?”

“Yup!” Fire all but chirped. “Ice is a Healer, so he was able to get ahold of a Threadling for Judy, and then he got me Inserted so Judy and I can talk and go shopping and spar and all sorts of stuff together!”

Which had him chuckling.

Most Souls wouldn’t find sparring _fun_ , but this was Judith and a Soul she got on with _very_ well, so... Really, he wasn’t surprised anymore.

And watching Fire racing inside their little apartment and tackling the Krityan currently standing over the stove, he had to wonder. Estelle had been hinting at wanting a child, but Sunny and Scout were leaving that decision up to him.

A part of him regretted knowing that the child would have a Soul Inserted before it could even be properly self-aware, but at the same time...

“Ah, Scout.”

“Sentinel,” he corrected for the second time that day. And, watching the man pause, and then slowly smile as he realized who he was talking to, he decided that he’d at least talk to Estelle about it.

Talk first. The rest... could wait.


	28. Family

The Threadlings were... awe-inspiring. Really.

“You know, most people think it’s boring, watching them in their individual pods as they just... sit there,” Minnow piped up from behind him. Raven’s black hair was streaked through with a dark grey that threatened to turn lighter still as the man aged. Which, he could sympathize with. It wasn’t as easy as it used to be to keep up with the Seekers with younger Hosts.

“They’re beautiful,” he said honestly. And they were. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of tiny Souls, each in their own sphere, and all packed together in the glowing blue-green-gold of the Incubation tank like fish eggs.

Minnow smiled, and reached out to tap one sphere in particular, labeled with a string of numbers that meant absolutely nothing to him.

820202

“Sodia,” Minnow said simply. And, _oh_.

He quickly set to work memorizing that sequence of numbers. Because that was going to be Sodia’s designation once they’d started Inserting her, and finding her again once they were both Souls hinged greatly on those six numbers.

“They’re all growing pretty quickly. Who knows? Sodia might end up Inserted into her first Host before we get you and Scout Extracted,” Minnow continued, apparently happy to provide most of the conversation himself.

“What about you?” he asked. Minnow’s Host wasn’t getting any younger.

The man shrugged, and tapped his chest. “This blastia’s actually just about to give out. The other Healers have a new Host lined up and ready for me, and you’ve still got a couple decades in you, so my new Host will have reached adulthood by the time I’m needed for your Extraction.” Blue eyes looked at him. “And you? You planning on staying with the Seekers until you can’t anymore?”

He nodded. “Yeah. Though Chases the Drakes finally talked me into taking a desk job for the rest of this life.” No matter how much he hated to admit it, his body wasn’t too pleased with fighting anymore. He’d done all he could in the field, and the longer he insisted on staying out there, the more of a liability he became.

Minnow looked amused. “You two deserve each other.”

_‘Hey now! I resemble that remark!’_

Sentinel snickered at the absolutely _terrible_ false indignation in Scout’s voice.

Which just served to amuse Minnow more.

“You two are going to be absolutely horrible to listen to once all of us can hear both sides of the conversation,” the Healer grumbled good-naturedly.

“Probably.”

“I’m glad.”

Sentinel blinked, and looked at Minnow in confusion.

The Healer’s smile was warm, and made Sentinel think of _home_. A home Yuri had known, in the months between the adephagos and the Occupation. It had been a while since he’d gotten one of those flashes, but he cherished them all the same, the little reminders that Yuri was there in the only way he could be.

“I’m glad, that our family’s grown just that little bit larger,” Minnow clarified. “Because the Souls live off of community and family and trust, and Scout and Golden have little enough family already.”

And really... so had _he_ , before all of this.

“I’m glad, too.”


	29. Threadling

“Are you ready?”

Sentinel—Flynn Scifo—turned his head to look at the young man at his bedside. This had come earlier than they’d expected, but illnesses _happened_ , and his body was fragile enough now that it didn’t make sense to try to wait. “Yes.”

Minnow sat an empty cryopack and a less-empty Threadling orb on the table next to him, and shot him a wry smirk. “Good. Because if you’d said ‘no’ I would’ve smacked you with this orb.”

Which wrangled a weak chuckle out of him.

“You sure you want to stay conscious for this? I know it’s the last time you’ll be truly conscious for a while...”

“Yeah. I’m sure.”

Which was followed up by Minnow holding out a square of No Pain for him.

It happened... much like Sodia’s Extraction, he mused. Minnow made the incision again, which felt _weird_ , because he could feel the man’s finger _in his neck_ —

_‘See you in the next life, Sentinel.’_

_“And you, Scout.”_

And then... it was silent in his head.

He could _feel_ Scout’s attachments withdrawing, and damn did it tickle. But it gave him something to track, because he couldn’t see the Soul being Extracted.

Minnow’s finger left his neck. He resisted the urge to turn his head and look, even though he wanted to.

And then Minnow laid Scout’s cryopack in front of him, and he smiled as he read the familiar designation: SFO-010144.

Something tickled the back of his neck, and then Minnow’s fingers were back, and—

 _Oh_.

He took a deep breath in, and closed his eyes, because he could _feel_...

He slipped.

Just like he was surrendering control to Scout, except Scout was gone, held in his arms, and this...

He could _feel_ himself.

 _Both_ selves.

He could feel his attachments— _his_ now—as they reached on instinct, twining with nerves in his spine and brain. So gentle, so delicate, and yet so very strong, more than capable of _shredding_ these points he was tying himself to.

Oh Mists.

“Sentinel?”

Breathing. Breathing was a thing.

In. Out.

He opened his eyes and shifted just a little, looking up at Minnow. A flashlight shone in his eyes, and the silver rings of a Soul danced around the room.

This was it, then. It was done.

Scout was gone. Those rings... those rings were _his_. He was a Soul.

He was Sentinel.

His eyes slid closed again, a faint smile tugging at his lips as he pulled all of his memories to himself—his and Yuri’s—and just... rested.

It was done.

And if he thought he heard Yuri’s voice as the darkness enveloped him, well. Scout _had_ named him Shadow Walker.

_“See you in the next life... Flynn.”_


	30. Beginning

The beginning will feel like the end. It’s not a warning Minnow had remembered to give him—or Sodia, for that matter—but it was one that almost-nightly trips into Scout’s memories had ingrained into him.

The beginning will feel like the end.

And it did. Because he remembered _dying_ , and then the faintest idea of warmth and light.

He remembered the end...

And now it was time for a beginning.

He blinked his eyes open, wondering, worrying. Because he didn’t feel like he was in a different species of Host, but it was so _different_ —

And then he realized.

Souls were Inserted into very young Hosts once the Occupation got into full swing.

“Hey. You able to track my fingers?” a Healer asked, holding out a hand and moving it back and forth.

That much, at least, he could do. He was going to have to totally relearn how to move.

“Good.” A pause, and a glance around, and then the Healer smiled at him again. “Sentinel?”

Oh.

Minnow.

Grinning wasn’t hard.

Once the Healers were sure that he was attached properly, he was sent home with the Souls who would be his Caretakers. They gave him a human name—Nash—and he figured out pretty quickly that Minnow had ensured he kept his blonde hair and blue eyes.

He knew he was drawing some amount of attention from the Healers with his independence, but... he wasn’t a completely new Soul, with no idea how to care for his Host. It was a bit of an interesting learning curve they hadn’t anticipated.

He was none-too-gently nudged away from Seeking for this life, and so he reluctantly learned one of his Caretakers’ Callings. When Storekeeping proved to be well out of his comfort zone, Bella—his ‘mother,’ whose Calling _was_ Caretaking—took him to speak to a Guide.

Golden’s newest Host was blonde, too, albeit female, and getting up in her years. Still, it was nice to talk to someone who understood what he was struggling with, and as soon as his current Host was old enough, Flynn—Sentinel— _Nash_ was taken to Aurion.

Farming was new, but the physical labor helped a lot more than the numbers that he’d been _trying_ to keep up with, and unfamiliar faces and Souls meant he could sort of start over.

Thus, his second life was spent as a Grower.

He didn’t find Sodia in that life. Or the third life, half of which he spent shadowing Golden in Dahngrest as first his ward, and then apprentice.

Guiding came a lot more naturally than he’d expected, and Golden was happy to attribute that to the fact that Flynn (because Golden had spared him having to learn to answer to another new name) was a natural Leader.

He finally found Sodia again in his fourth life, after seeing off Golden, who was chasing after Scout, as usual. Silver, Sunny, and Minnow had already left, with only Fire, Judith, and Sodia remaining behind. Judith would never be leaving Terca Lumereis, but Fire, released from her promise to stay with Ba’ul since Judith could do so herself, was starting to get restless as her Krityan Host faded. As for him and Sodia...

He was a Guide, again, because the Healers were still uncomfortable letting him join the Seekers, and that was how they ran into each other.

He’d gotten a message from a Healer about a young Soul needing assistance with choosing a Calling. He hadn’t looked at the Soul’s designation, only her name—Navia.

Navia had black hair and dark green eyes, and that was why it had thrown him off so thoroughly. Between Minnow, in his second and third lives, and Golden for his fourth, he’d ended up with blonde hair and eyes in _some_ shade of blue every time.

Sodia... hadn’t.

Her current Host (fifth-life, because she’d been Inserted into her ‘second’ Host shortly after he’d been placed in the Incubation pods) was just little bit younger than his, and for the first time since he’d shared a life with Scout, Flynn found himself with a Partner.

And with Sodia at his side once again, they agreed, as their Hosts grew and aged, that they’d waited on Terca Lumereis long enough.


	31. End

His designation was SOZ-840144.

He’d have to thank Minnow again, someday, for making the last four digits of his designation match Scout’s.

And until then...

One last set of keystrokes, and the message was sent to a Soul thousands of light-years away. The response would go unread for a long while, though, because it would take at least two centuries for Sentinel of Zaphias to get to his destination.

Four lives wasn’t very long for a Soul, but he’d stayed on Terca Lumereis long enough. Time to _earn_ his world-hopper designation.

_Don’t have too much fun out there without me, you hear? –Sentinel_

_I’ll see you in the next life, little brother. –Scout_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a reminder, the Epilogue won't be going up until I've finished rewriting Book 2 to account for everything that changed from Version 1 of this story to Version 3. :) In the meantime...
> 
> See you in the next life~


End file.
